PERPIGNAN. 



65 



mode of seeing the vinej'ards near Perpignan. He said I 

 could not have inquired of persons more competent to 

 give me information ; that they had considerable agri- 

 cultural establishments in the neighbourhood, and if I 

 and my friend (the gentleman with whom I had travelled 

 from Figueras) would accompany them the next day, 

 they would be glad to give us every information in 

 their power. After accepting this very liberal offer, with 

 due expressions of thankfulness, I mentioned that I had 

 heard of their eminence as agriculturists, and had I 

 gone to Marseilles in the first instance, I intended to 

 have procured an introduction to them. He replied that 

 it was unnecessary ; that if we were agriculturists we were 

 their friends — that all agriculturists were their friends. 

 It was accordingly arranged that we should accompany 

 them the next morning in their carriage. 



Thursday^ 17th November. — Mr. Durand having re- 

 commended our starting at six in the morning as the days 

 were short, and we had more than one place to visit, we 

 proceeded to their house at day-break. Both the brothers 

 accompanied us. When we got clear of the walls of 

 Perpignan, it was sufficiently light to enable us to make 

 some observations as we passed. The olive is cultivated 

 to a great extent on all sides. Mr. Durand knows only 

 one variety, a large black sort, not so large as the la 

 Reyna of Seville, but about as large as the largest of the 

 other sorts cultivated there. Here, as elsewhere, the 

 olive has this season been attacked by a worm, but it is 

 attributed rather to a deficiency than an excess of rain. 

 The rain has this season been below the average in this 

 district, and the country has suffered a good deal in con- 

 sequence. The average annual produce of olive trees 

 throughout the country is from 15 to 20 pounds of oil, 



