1847. 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
269 
RURAL NOTICES ABROAD—No. VII.— By Caids. 
French Farming~-Appearance of the Fields, 
&.C.'—■-The general surface of France has by no means 
that richness of rural aspect which every traveller re¬ 
marks in England. This is owing, in some measure, 
to the more monotonous surface of the country; for 
while England is broken up into vast variety, by plain, 
valley, wood, height, glen, and gently undulating land, 
France, for the most part, presents a succession of vast 
waving plains, here and there channelled by slow run¬ 
ning rivers, or traversed by lines of mountains. It is 
modelled upon a more gigantic scale than England. 
Its rivers are longer; its distances are more vast; and its 
hills, though perhaps not higher than British hills, are 
more sweeping in their forms, and less striking in out¬ 
line. Exception however, is to be made in favor of a 
large portion of Brittany, the valley of the Seine, in its 
progress through Normandy, the country of the Au¬ 
vergne, and that part of Burgundy adjoining the 
Juras. 
Not only, however, is it in variety of surface, that 
England surpasses France, but in those country adorn¬ 
ments, which make up the pleasing rural aspect of the 
British isles. The French farm house, though sub¬ 
stantially built of stone, and stuccoed, and convenient 
in its interior arrangements, has nowhere the prettily 
thatched roof, the embowering vines, the rich shade 
trees, the encircling bit of turf, the scattered flowers, 
the latticed windows, which belong to the English cot- 
tage. Add to this, the unattractiveness of its situa¬ 
tion, upon the middle of some broad plain—instead of 
quiet nook or valley, or pleasant knoll—so common to 
English landscape, and one may readily imagine the 
superior beauty of the island farmery. 
Again, the French cottage, in most situations, has 
few or no hedges. Its offices are all thrown together 
within one common enclosure of high stone walls. 
From the road, you enter by a large gateway into a 
slattern court, about which carts are dropped here and 
there, and poultry scratching in the accumulated dirt, 
and swine, perhaps, rooting about the stagnant pool in 
the middle. On one side of this court will be the 
doors and windows of the farm-house—its walls white, 
where not befouled with dirt—its roof of heavy red 
tiles, and its chimney stiff and clumsy. There is no 
vine beside the door—-not even a rose tree, or violet, 
or morning glory; but there is a studied neglect of 
these little charms which would not do discredit to many 
New England farmers. The sun shines hotly upon the 
white walls, and upon the red roofs of the offices by 
its side. 
Sheds of timber, and roofed with tiles, stretch around 
upon another side of the court, for the animals and best 
constructed implements. A barn and granary of the 
same sort of construction lie upon the third side of the 
court, and the entrance gate, with its high flanking 
wall, make up the fourth. 
In the more pretending establishments, the farm¬ 
house stands removed from the common court of the 
farmery, and connects w r ith it by a little wing thrown 
back upon the offices. 
The garden adjoins the enclosure, with its skirt of 
fruit trees, stragglingly disposed, except in the orchard 
provinces, where their disposition is neat and beautiful. 
Fences, in the plain country—the country most seen 
by the casual traveller—are very rare; neither hedge, ■ 
<or ditch, or wall, and the junction of farms or estates 
is designated by rows of trees, or mere ridges of turf, in 
the vine-growing countries, particularly such as fur¬ 
nish the best wines, as Medoc and Burgundy, division 
of property is marked simply by lines of vines, and size 
of vineyards is reckoned only by the number of lines. 
The great roads are broad and macadamized, with 
freauentlv a strip of grass land upon either side, which 
is depastured by cows tethered to stakes, or by sheep 
under guardianship of dogs. Rows of trees border the 
way, and beyond are yellow, broad-waving fields of 
grain, barley and wheat; or perhaps the land is covered 
with a light grass, on which immense flocks of sheep 
are feeding. The first may be seen on the route to the 
east, leading through Auxerre; the sheep abound to¬ 
ward Chateauroux. 
Again, upon the best of the grass meadows, east¬ 
ward toward Dijon and Dole, you may see great 
herds of cattle, or in the valley of Limousin you will 
see scores of horses. 
Turning away from the great routes, one finds little 
bye-lanes, which, with their trees and occasional hedge 
rows, will remind of England. The farm-houses, too, 
upon the cross country roads, while they are more un¬ 
pretending in aspect, have more of that rural simplici¬ 
ty which makes much of the charm of an English 
cottage. 
The canals, stretching over the plains, are not un 
frequently gracefully shaded with willows, or lindens, 
and the sight of their shining surface, glimmering 
through a copse, the high-collared, heavy Norman 
horse, toiling along the tow-path—the quaintly clad 
laborers, singing at their work in the fields,—with the 
cone-topped towers of some old chateau lifting behind 
the wood, make up a fresh bit of French picturing in 
my mind. 
Gentlemen’s seats, with lawn, and gate lodge, and 
park enclosure, and troops of deer, come rarely under 
the eye in France. The French character is not prone 
to ruralities. Even the amusements of the peasantry 
partake of a civilian character; dancing, and music, 
and gallantries of speech, relieve the tedium of field la¬ 
bor, in place of cricket, or bathing, or fishing. Nor is 
it easy to find a French peasant who does not wear a 
courteous air. Even the old woman of the little auberge, 
where you stop to lunch, receives you with a ready 
politesse, that in the country districts of New-York 
would pass for city breeding. 
The country villages of France have peculiarities, 
which it may be worth while to note in a separate 
paper. 
Food for Milch Cows. —At a large milk estab¬ 
lishment near Newcastle, England, the cows are fed 
in the following manner: 91 pounds of clover hay, (cut 
or chopped,) 168 lbs. brewer’s grains, 12 lbs. ground 
flax seed, 2 lbs. salt, are mixed together, and equally 
divided as the daily food for twelve cows. The hay, 
after having been cut, is put into the mash tub and 
scalded with boiling water. The other articles are 
then mixed with it. It is stated that a good cow thus 
fed, will yield an average of fourteen quarts of milk 
per day, for eight months in succession. The owner 
of the establishment, (Mr. Arundale,) stated that he 
had one cow which had not had a calf for two years 
and a half, that was giving an average of eight quarts 
per day. A great point observed is, that the cows 
never fall off in condition. 
