274 
THE CULTIVATOR 
Aug, 
Swiss, of good size and pretty well formed, but bad 
handlers. They have some very good hogs of the Eng- 
lish breed, and were making a cross of the English and 
Chinese. The farm appeared to be in a high state of 
cultivation. Great pains were taken to make and save 
all the manure. 
The next farm I visited was the government farm at 
Eambouillet, The stock here, is principally sheep. It is 
the jilace where the Spanish sheep were first placed, and 
have been bred by the government ever since. There is 
a palace there, but not in a very good state of repair at 
present. It was formerly quite a favorite place of resort 
as a summer residence for the Kings of France. The 
Director was very courteous, and took every pains to show 
the sheep, samples, &c. They have- samples of every 
sheep that they have sheared since they commenced. 
Everything is done systematically. They have paintings 
of most of the bucks that have been used. The form 
of the sheep is not as good as some other flocks that I 
saw, but the wool is finer. The director gave me some 
beautiful samples. They sell only once a year, and then 
at public auction. They sel| all the bucks that they 
raise in that way, except such as they reserve for their 
own use, and ewes, if they have any to spare. They 
sold no ewes this year. 
I next visited Monsieur Cughnot’s farm, who has 
about the same number of sheep, and about the same 
quality of Mr. Gilbert’s. These three flocks stand at 
the head. They are the places where almost all resort 
for bucks. I met a good many sheep breeders from dif¬ 
ferent sections, at those places, buying bucks. Februa¬ 
ry is the month in which they generally select their bucks 
for the next season. They universally admitted that 
Messrs. Gilbert and Cughnot had the best sheep in 
France. 
On returning to Paris, I fell in with Mr. George 
Campbell of our State, who was on the same business 
that I was, (after sheep.) "We therefore concluded to 
travel together, and purchase in company. We con¬ 
cluded to go to Spain first, as that was the place 
where the fine sheep came from, and see what we could 
find. Started from Paris Feb. 4th, went 150 miles 
by railroad to Tours. The country, a good part of the 
way, quite poor; saw very little stock. We passed seve¬ 
ral miles through a valley, I should judge from 6 to 8 
miles wide, with a continuous village at the foot of the 
hills each side of the valley. The valley is meadow and 
pasture; the hills are planted to vines. Every few rods 
is a wine vault, all the way. At Tours we took the dili¬ 
gence—found beautiful roads and quite level. The 
roads are in perfect repair; they keep stones by the 
side of the road, broken fine, and persons all the while 
on the road to keep in repair. As soon as they begin to 
wear down in any place, they putin some of this broken 
stone. The road will be as straight as you can draw 
a line as far as your eye can extend. In the south part 
of France and north part of Spain, they have trees 
planted each side of the road; many of them have got 
to be of good size, and form a beautiful shade; they are 
generally poplar. They drive from 5 to 6 horses—three 
abreast—go at the rate of from nine to ten miles an hour. 
Their horses are large, and generally in fine condition. 
They are a very strong, hardy race of horses. As you 
approach towards the south of France, you begin to see 
oxen at work. The first I saw were poor and small; 
the way they work them is to lash a stick back of their 
horns, which is the way they do all through France and 
Spain, and drive them with goads. I never saw them use 
a whip in Europe, to drive oxen. They take no pains to 
match them either as to size, color or sex; sometimes 
they will have an ox and cow yoked together. As we 
go south, we found the vineyards more extensive and the 
vines larger; they were trimming the vines. They keep 
them headed down to about 2 feet high; they bind the 
parts they take off into bundles for fuel; some they cut 
close to the main stalk, and others they leave about 3 feet 
long. They plant them out in different ways; some 
times they occupy all the land. They put the rows 
from four feet to four rods apart; when they do hot oc¬ 
cupy all the land, they till it between the rows; a good 
share of it was in wheat. 
We arrived at Bordeaux, at 8 o’clock, 2d day. It 
is the second city in France. Its principal trade is wine 
and brandy. We started from Bordeaux at 8 o’clock 
next morning—arrived at Bayonne at seven the follow¬ 
ing morning, 175 miles. The country, part of the way 
from Bordeaux to Bayonne, is poor—some of the way a 
perfect desert; and the inhabitants look as poor as the 
country. After leaving Bordeaux, I noticed that they had 
the inside horns of their oxen sawed off to about 4 inches 
long. About half way from Bordeaux to Bayonne we 
found another kind of cattle; they must be well bred, 
as they are all alike. I have seen sometimes 20 yoke, 
I should think, in a string, and any two of them would 
match. They are not large cattle, but well formed, 
tight snag built—a yellow red color, with horns about 
medium length, well formed, and stand about right— 
we found this kind of cattle for about 100 miles in the 
south of France, and about the same distance in the 
north of Spain. They make fine oxen, but what the 
cows are for milk, I did not learn. The women do 
most of the marketing in France. In the morning at 
Bordeaux, and the same at Bayonne, the roads were full 
of women, carrying their stuff to market; some with 
mules, but more with donkeys; their stuff put in baskets 
and slung on each side of the donkeys, and would weigh 
often more than the donkey. But the greater part carry 
their vegetables, fish, or whatever they have to carry to 
market, in baskets on their heads. The diligence starts 
from Bayonne for Madrid. We had to stop over one day 
to get our passports vised. We entered the Spanish ter¬ 
ritory about 25 miles from Bayonne. A small river di¬ 
vides the two countries; the French flag is flying on 
one end of the bridge, and the Spanish on the other— 
we had to have our passports vised by the police on leav¬ 
ing France, and again on entering Spain. The country 
we passed the first day was very good: they raise large 
quantities of turneps, which stand in the field through 
the winter. We came to the mountain about dark. They 
had to put on oxen in two or three places to draw up 
the diligence. They drive principally*mules in Spain— 
usually from five to nine. They are very cruel to the 
mules, the whip being in almost constant use, sometimes 
by two drivers, one on the box and another along side a 
foot. I have seen these Spaniards run 2 or 3 miles at a time 
by the side of the mules, on a full gallop, whipping all the 
