Calais to Amiens. 475 



or unemployed ground, the fields being continued to the very 

 edges of the road. 



The system of culture is, apparently, determined by the 

 quantity of land occupied by the respective individuals ; but, 

 generally speaking, the breadths are limited, when compared with 

 the extent of the same articles observable on the open downs 

 of Sussex and Cambridgeshire. The crops appeared to be later, 

 in relation to the season (early in May), than with us : of wheat 

 and rye, the winter varieties were only apparent ; and it was the 

 season for sowing oats and barley. Beans and peas, which, with 

 us, are extensively and profitably cultivated, are, in this part of 

 France, grown only in detached portions and limited quantities. 

 A few patches of turnip, or colza (Z>rassica campestris oleifera 

 Dec. : see Encyc. of Agr., 2d edit., § GO. 76.), a species of rape, 

 here in extensive use, are the only crops observable at this 

 season. Women are generally employed in weeding and other 

 farm occupations, which they do not seem to consider as at all 

 imposing extraordinary labour. The whole system bespeaks, 

 apparently, an indifference and an easy independence: that 

 which cannot be done to-day, may be finished to-morrow ; the 

 cultivators depending, I presume, on the more general certainty 

 of their climate, and being, probably, also much influenced by 

 the buoyancy and elasticity of their general temperament, which 

 indicates the absence of those careful and all-absorbing con- 

 siderations which pervade more or less all classes, more espe- 

 cially the agricultural one, in England. 



After leaving the marshes immediately around Calais, the soil 

 shows itself to be a strong, heavy, retentive clay, requiring much 

 labour and time to reduce it to a state of culture. At the dis- 

 tance of twenty miles, it becomes more loamy, with an occasional 

 appearance of the intermixture of chalk, resembling the soil of 

 some parts of Kent and Sussex. This gives evidence of its 

 superior fitness for the purposes of agriculture ; and the state 

 of the crops, which are here more luxuriant, and decidedly 

 superior, confirm this supposition. Through a distance of 

 thirty miles, I did not observe the residence of one respectable 

 farmer or cultivator, such as are to be seen in the rural districts 

 of England ; nevertheless the farmers are generally proprietors, 

 and in independent circumstances. From my own observation, 

 I should not consider that the condition of the French cultivators 

 could be at all enviable ; but I am assured by some most 

 respectable residents, that they are all more or less in comfort- 

 able circumstances; their condition, in this respect, arising from 

 the absence of direct taxation, and the non-existence of tithes 

 or any system of poor laws. As you proceed towards Paris, 

 the soil evidently keeps improving ; but there was not any ap- 

 pearance of what mavbe considered horticultural crops, except 



u4 



