The Farm of M. Durand. 
31 
was awarded to M, Rodat, of Druelle, for bis drainage and 
irrigation. 
We now come to a veteran of decided character, M. Durand, 
a good specimen of the practical man— which commonly means 
one who shrewdly adopts and perseveringly cames out certain 
views well suited to his position, entirely discarding from his 
mind all that does not readily fall in with those designs. Suc- 
ceeding, in 1814, to a property which lay piecemeal, M. Durand 
shortly sold it to buy a compact farm, to which he has since 
added another ; so that he now holds about 645 acres of variable 
soil. " From the first he clearly perceived and resolutely applied 
the doctrine — then a great novelty, now a popular truth — that 
Aveyron, which, from its mountainous surface, and its elevated 
position between two seas, has a very rainy climate, should 
make its farming hinge, not on corn, but on stock." His prac- 
tice has been to break up his rough pastures, put them through 
a course of roots (potatoes, mangold, carrots, turnips, cabbage, 
maize) and corn (oats by preference), and then lay them down. 
Want of labourers has restricted his root-crops : at present one- 
third of the farm is in corn and potatoes; one-third in forage- 
crops ; one-third in improved pasture. 
M. Durand introduced the practice of liming on a large scale ; 
his kilns have been at work these forty years ; he has done much 
earth-carting to mix his soils. Dissatisfied with the practice of 
sending the cows in summer to distant mountains, he abandoned 
his dairy. The fear of the rot made him part with his breeding 
flock. It is his custom to give one very deep ploughing (10 to 
12 inches), and to cover in the manure when fresh : repeated 
ploughing he considers to be exhausting. He grows the same 
amount of corn as before, on half the breadth of land ; but was 
obliged to abandon the seed-drill from the wilfulness of his 
workmen. 
M. Durand's great aim is to simplify; to this end he has 
cleared away walls and fences — has ceased to breed sheep or 
cattle. He has diminished the range of his hoed crops — has left 
off rearing horses, or even breeding pigs or poultry, that he might 
devote himself to grazing and growing corn. Hemp-growing 
and spinning has been abandoned ; the accounts made so plain 
that, while he was in exile, his daughter readily managed his 
affairs for him ; the staff of labourers, whose carelessness and in- 
capacity he loudly denounces, reduced to a minimum (fifteen 
persons) ; so that, whilst his net income is lower on a given 
area than that of certain of his neighbours, his outgoinffs are one- 
third less. The live-stock of this farm used to be 20 head of 
cattle or horses and 300 sheep ; now there are 100 cattle, 12 
working-bullocks, 4 horses and mares, 300 grazing-sheep. The 
