t 11 ] 
After leaving Nantz, which contains about 
70,000 inhabitants, and lays upon the river LoirCs, 
and has been and still is the centre of a very consid¬ 
erable commerce, but which I shall not stay to de¬ 
scribe, as I am not writing travels, a brief 
sketch of the agricultural state of the country ; 
we travelled, for the great part of the way, to Or¬ 
leans, through the most beautiful and fertile coun¬ 
try ill the world. The road lays along the Loire^ 
and is altogether on a bank raised above ten or fifteen 
feet higher than the level of the river—the opposite 
bank of which is elevated and covered with towns^ 
villages, and the ruins of churches and castles ; 
for it was here the barbarous rage of destroying 
every monument cf religion or the ancient grandeur 
of the nobles most prevailed ; while the side on 
which we were consists of low or interval lands, 
whose average breadth, for an extent of about fifty 
miles, I take to be not less than eight. The back, 
ground is elevated, and like the opposite side of the 
river, covered with towns and villages. This low 
ground is all in the highest possible state of cultiva¬ 
tion. Adjoining the road, and below the bank, are 
the farm houses, surrounded by a garden filled with 
fruit trees, with vines, trained up the trees and ex¬ 
tended from one to the other—every house also is 
covered vvith a large grape vine, at least on three 
sides. Next to these gardens, are the arable lands, a 
few spots only excepted, which are turned to grass, 
as being too low to plough. The grain is all sown 
upon narrow ridges, made by laying two furrows 
