102 Notes on Marhet-gardening and Vine-culture, Sj-c. 
and on flat land produce what are termed " small wines " (^petits 
vins). Farms which produce from 50 to 100 casks a year are 
the most numerous in this district, but there are many which 
have an average vintage of 300 or 400 casks. The merchants 
buy the " must " of the farmers, generally having a contract 
with them for a number of years at so much per hogshead. 
Cognac. — A few words on this district, which is of almost as 
much interest to Englishmen as the Champagne, will enable me 
to mention that fearful scourge, the Phylloxera. The vines are 
grown on an intermediate system to those prevailing in Cham- 
pagne and Saumur. They are planted in rows about a yard 
apart, but not many rows together without an interval cropped as 
agricultural land. The land is manured for the farm-crops, but 
the vines are not specially manured, as they are thought to obtain 
sufficient nutriment from the manure applied to the adjacent 
crops. The cultivation of the land, except hand-hoeing, is done 
by means of an ancient lumbering machine like a one-tined 
cultivator, drawn by two bullocks. 
The ordinary course of cropping is the national three-shilt 
rotation, namely, two white crops followed by green crops, 
potatoes, or bare fallow. Wheat often succeeds wheat on the 
stronger land, where, of course, no vines are grown. About 50 
acres is the prevailing size of the farms, which are worked 
generally on the metayer system (that is to say, the farmer 
receives half the produce as payment for labour and supervision, 
and the landlord receives the other half as payment for rent, 
interest on capital, manure, and other expenses). Vine-lands 
are generally cultivated by the proprietors. The farmers distil 
their own wine at the farm-houses, without the supervision of a 
custom-house officer, but they must obtain a permit to move it. 
The duty is paid when the brandy is sold to the retail dealer, or 
when it is shipped for export. The export duty is light, but the 
duty for home consumption is very heavy. 
The great question in the Cognac district, which comprises 
nearly the whole of the two" Departments of the Charente, is, 
" How to prevent in future the ravages of the Phylloxera ?" Up 
to the end of 1878 about one-third of the acreage in vines in the 
two Departments had been utterly ruined. In consequence, so I 
was informed, the value of vineyard property had been so depre- 
ciated that in some districts it was entirely unsaleable: in fact, 
nobody attempted to sell real estate. However, thanks to the 
frugality of the farmers, which in this district took the form of 
hoarding brandy instead of coin, it was estimated that the 
markets could be supplied with more or less matured brandy for 
at least seven or eight years from these hoards. It is the prac- 
tice of the farmers to reserve a portion of each year's make, and to 
