64 
TRAVELS IN 
from twenty to thirty feet without a branch : many are much 
larger : the tops are neither bent, nor is the wood fhaken, nor 
twifted, as of thofe about Cape Town ; a proof that the winds 
are lefs violent in this valley than at the latter place. 
Franfche Hoek, and the two Drakenfteens, have neither 
church nor any alfemblage of houfes that deferves the name of 
village, but are compofed of detached farms, difperfed over the 
vale at confiderable diftances from each other. Moft of thefe 
are freehold property, that were granted, in the early ftages of 
the Settlement, for certain fums of money, or by favor, or 
for particular fervices. They confift each of fixty morgens of 
land, or 1 20 Englifli acres, and the pofTeffors claim the privi- 
lege of the intermediate wafte-land to turn their cattle upon. 
This is a great abufe, which perhaps would beft be checked by 
obliging the proprietors to inclofe their juft portion of 120 
acres, and would certainly be the means of greatly improving 
the country. 
The chief produce of the valley is wine. At this time they 
were bufily employed in pruning their vines. Thefe are feldom 
fuffered to creep up into frames or ftandards, as is moft common 
in the fouthern parts of Europe, but are planted in rows, in the 
fame manner, and about the fame fize, as currants or goofe- 
berry bufhes in England. In this part of the colony, which is 
not very diftant from the Gape-market, there is no kind of pro- 
duce that fo well repays the labor of the farmer as the culture 
of the grape. On an acre of ground may be planted five thou- 
fand ftocks of vines, and athoufand of thefe will generally yield 
a leaguer 
