Foreign Notices: —France. 487 



Art. IL Foreign Notices. 



FRANCE. 



Remarks on Touraine. — Sir, Touraine has of old been called " the gar- 

 den of France," and its present inhabitants are by no means willing that it 

 should lose this complimentary epithet. In good truth, it has some preten- 

 sions to that name, though a stranger, particularly if he be an Englishman, 

 might not be disposed at first sight to concede the title. Every where on 

 the slopes and steep sides of their very moderate hills (the cotes, as the 

 French call them), the vines are cultivated; the chateaux of the country 

 gentlemen, and the country houses of the bankers and merchants of Tours, 

 are surrounded by them ; in short, except in the rich alluvion which 

 forms the nearly unrivalled rich soil of the valley of the Loire and Cher 

 about Tours, vineyards prevail every where. There are many thousand 

 acres of vineyard, perhaps not less than 80,000 or 90,000, in^the department 

 of the Indre and Loire, which comprises the whole of the ancient Touraine, 

 together with small parts of what were formerly the provinces of Poitu and 

 Anjou. In consequence, the garden-like appearance of the country is 

 wofully injured for five or six months of the year, being the interval between 

 the beginning of the vintage and the foliation of the vines late in the spring. 

 During the whole of this long period, nine tenths of the country looks like 

 fallow fields, particularly if the vineyards receive their due share of culti- 

 vation : and there is little to relieve this sombre monotonous appearance, 

 except here and there a small grove of tall taper trees, planted with 

 exceeding regularity, to shelter the houses in the country from the westerly 

 winds of winter, or to shade them from the scorching heats of summer. 

 Early in the spring, however, the almond, the apricot, and the peach tree, 

 the cherry, and the plum,, beautifully chequer the scene with their blush- 

 ing and delicate blossoms. They are planted freely in the vineyards, as 

 well as in the gardens ; are generally standard trees ; and most years yield 

 their respective fruits in great abundance and excellence. But the back- 

 ground, the carpet of green, is wanting ; and, if I may judge by my own feel- 

 ings, it would take many a long year to reconcile an Englishman to the 

 absence of that delightfuLverdure which renders our own isle so lovely. 



But if from the country at large, too partially called a garden, we step into 

 the more confined divisions of land distinguished by that name in most 

 countries, there indeed do the richness of the soil and superiority of the 

 climate show themselves to surprising advantage. In the market-gardens 

 not only do nearly all of the hardy and spring vegetables which we culti- 

 vate find a place, but the cardaon and many other plants, chiefly for their 

 soups and salads, of which we know little and cultivate less, are intermixed 

 in almost endless variety. Excellent and cheap, surprisingly so, are the 

 vegetable productions of these gardens ; and, in general, they are taken to 

 market at least a month earlier than the same articles are in the most 

 favoured parts of England. On the 1st of April asparagus were served up 

 at table ; they had been in the market a week before : they were sold on 

 that day for a franc (lOd) the botte, containing from 75 to 80 well grown 

 asparagus; and by the 16th two larger bottes, of from 90 to 100 stalks 

 each, were to be had for one franc four sous, equal to a shilling of our 

 money. Vast quantities of this excellent vegetable were by this time not 

 only exposed for sale on the market-days, but hawked about the streets 

 daily. The cultivation of the asparagus plant in the neighbourhood of 

 Tours, if cultivation it can be called, is curious, as affording a striking proof 

 of the peculiar excellence of the soil, the general mildness of its winters, 

 and the early warmth of its springs. After the seeds are once sown, no 

 other care is bestowed upon the beds but to keep them free from weeds. 

 Every stalk cut throws up several, and continues to do so for many ye&rs, 

 without renewal of the plants or change of the beds ; and in the winter they 



I I 4 



