140 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
April, 
only occupants. Some of the best farms in this part of 
the country, are on the sites of these old forests. They 
are traversed in all directions by roads and paths, con¬ 
structed in olden times for the convenience of the king 
and court when hunting, but now overgrown and neglect¬ 
ed, they are only used by the wood-cutter or charcoal- 
burner. 
The first thing in a French landscape, that strikes an 
American, is the absence of fences, or visible divisions of 
any kind; and yet the land is often held in small parcels. 
The usual mark is a stone set in the ground at a corner; 
often it is little more than laid on the surface; neverthe¬ 
less, quarrels and litigation arising out of boundary ques¬ 
tions, are very rare. The sub-division of land is most gene¬ 
ral near the villages, and in their neighborhood the pieces 
are often very small. It is the custom, when a man dies 
and leaves land, (no matter how little it may be,) for his 
heirs to divide it, and each one hold his portion. On the 
death of one of these it is again divided, and so on until 
accident or necessity, throws it into the hands of some 
large land-holder. There seems to be but two classes of 
proprietors in this part of France. The one holding 
large estates, the other mere patches of ground There 
are few small farms either owned or rented. Most of the 
land is rented in bodies of from five hundred to a thou¬ 
sand acres. The rate depends of course upon the quali¬ 
ty, &c., varying from five to ten dollars an acre. The 
large tenant farmers reside on their farms; but the peas¬ 
antry, or working classes, live in hamlets or villages, as 
is the case in most parts of Europe. Hence it is, that 
around them the land is so divided. The small lots are 
usually in the shape of long parallellograms, and with 
their various colored crops, look at a distance, like a huge 
patch-work carpet. The women do most of the labor on 
these little patches, whilst the men are occupied with oth¬ 
er work. The cultivation is generally rude; the people 
are ignorant and wedded to old customs, and the land 
cropped to death 1 Spade husbandry is the most com¬ 
mon, and I was told the crops were very light, probably 
for want of manure. The poor people try to remedy this 
want by turning under a green crop, and sometimes with 
success. 
The roads are excellent, and are kept in order by gov¬ 
ernment. They are divided into sections of a few miles, to 
each of which a man is appointed, whose sole duty it is to 
repair the road. There are two kinds of road in France. 
The old road, with a strip of pavement about five yards 
wide through the middle, and a good gravel track on one 
or both sides. This was the ancient post route, and the 
principal thoroughfares were constructed in this way. 
When new, it is excellent, but the blocks of stone are 
large, and soon become uneven, when it is very uncom¬ 
fortable to travel over. The new roads are MacAdam- 
ized, and are equalled by none I have ever seen. 
In this department, as well as in many other parts of 
France, they are bordered with fruit trees, generally ap¬ 
ples and pears. The latter were in full bloom, and pro¬ 
mised an abundant crop of fruit. It is, however, very 
poor, being only fit to make cider or perry. 11 Cider,” as 
they call it, is made indiscriminately of both apples and 
pears, and is the common drink of the country, at least 
of this part, where the vine is not cultivated. Yery lit¬ 
tle attention is paid to making it, as it is onl^ used by 
the lower classes. The fruit is neither ground nor press¬ 
ed, only steeped in water; and as might be expected, the 
beverage is very insipid, and I should say, from its taste, 
has no intoxicating quantities.- 
As we drove along, I remarked how very few cattle or 
sheep were in the fields, and those few always accompa¬ 
nied by a shepherd or cowherd, to keep them from tres¬ 
passing. The cows are sometimes tethered by a rope round 
the horns, fastened to a pin driven into the ground, and 
I observed that they always eat up, without trampling 
down or wasting, all within their reach; they were usu¬ 
ally tethered on clover or lucerne. We passed at a dis¬ 
tance, the Agricultural School of Grignon, one of the 
best government establishments of the sort In France, to 
which I afterwards paid a visit. Here, leaving the pav¬ 
ed road, we turned into a cross road, which soon brought 
us to the gates of the park, within which, and close to 
the old Chateau of Wideville, my friend Mr. E. resides. 
He, himself was, not at home; but I was received with 
true French hospitality by his family, and at once took 
up my abode here for several days. F. M. R. 
Morrisj Feb ., 1852. 
Mulching Potatoes. 
For the purpose of directing attention to the subject 
in season, and inducing the trial of experiments, we give 
the substance of a mode of raising potatoes described in 
the Plough, Loom and Anvil, as performed by three 
different farmers, by mulching copiously with straw. The 
land, prepared as usual, was laid off in rows two feet 
apart, manured in the furrows; the potatoes dropped and 
covered as usual, leaving a level surface, and straw then 
applied six inches deep. The straw kept the surface 
moist and mellow throughout a prolonged drouth, and 
the crop was 300 bushels per acre, the tubers being of the 
finest quality, although potatoes were generally nearly 
destroyed by rot. “ What struck us as a peculiarity,” 
says the editor, “ was their singular smoothness, being 
quite as much so as apples. Mr. Somers laid his potato 
cuttings upon unplowed, unprepared ground, merely 
covering them with straw, and his crop we are informed, 
was fully equal to Mr. Skinner’s.” 
A new Mode of Fence Building. 
Eds. Cultivator —Being desirous to add my mite for 
the benefit of my brother farmers, I describe my mode 
of fence building. In the first place I set a good post 
seven feet four inches in length, two feet four inches into 
the ground, leaving five feet above ground. I then drive 
a stake beside the post at sufficient distance to admit a 
rail, then lay in two rails. I now twist a wire firmly 
around the post and stake, then put in two more rails, 
then another wire, completing the fence with two addi¬ 
tional rails, making six in all. I take the precaution to 
sharpen my posts, as they take their places more readily 
when thrown by the frost. I have had this fence stand¬ 
ing on my farm for four years, and it proves to be cheap 
and substantial. My neighbors have also tried it and 
found it in all respects satisfactory. A. Baley. Burnt 
Hills, Saratoga, N. Y. 
