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young’s TRAVELS IN FRANCE.

656

on the hills, and yet the rye after them miferable. Old vineyards of late quite neg-lefted, over-run with weeds, yet the grapes of a fize that fhew what the climate is ;they are now as big as peafe. In the towns every thing as bad ; all poor and miferable.

Rifmg up the mountain, which is all of pudding {tone, we find it is all cut into ter-races, fupported by many walls, with rows of vines on them for raifins, not wine, mul-berries, and olives : but here are fallows, and I thought I perceived traces of thefe hillshaving been formerly more cultivated than at prefent.

Pafs Colagefe. Come to a regular vineyard, the rows twelve feet afunder, the inter-vals alternate fallow and corn. The features of the country now begin to relax, themountains are not fo high, and the vales are wider. The leaves of a good mulberry-tree fell for 44 f or 22d. Englifh.

Many walnut-trees full of fruit. Much is tithed by the church: fee much corn,threfhing every where.

Crofs two pieces that had rye laft year, left now to weeds, and will be under rye againnext year ; an extraordinary courfe. Mulberry leaves never fold, but if fo, the pricewould be about 4! livres a tree. Cows all red. Land in the vale fells from 20I. to25I. Englifh the journal. The road leads up Monte Schia, the whole of which confiftsof a white (tone, and argilaceous marl. Snow on thediflant mountains.

Look back over a great profpeft, but totally to the eye without wood. Crofs a hillto another great vale, where is much, and fome rich cultivation, as the hills are notfteep, but Hoping.

Pafs in fight of St. Roma, near it the road leads by a fmall round lake, but it is cn veryhigh grouud, no hills near it; it is faid to be very deep. Here they were hoeing a bar-ley ftubble, juft ploughed, to form ridges, on which they fow French beans. Thisdiftrift is called that of Ihells : millet juft up ; pafs a large w’afte almoft entirely coveredwith lavender ; corn on a part of it; but after a crop, they leave it to weeds to recoveragain. Here alfo they praftife the alternate hufbandry of one bed, or broad-ridge,corn, and another fallow. Plow with cream-coloured oxen. In breaking up thewaftes here, they cut the fpontaneous growth to dry, then pile it into heaps with theearth pared and placed on it; this is all burned ; we faw heaps ready to be burned tothe quantity of five hundred loads an acre: but the crops are wretched for many miles,fcarcely the feed again.

In our inquiries, meet with fome traces of what in France are called metayers , that is,a fort of farmers who cultivate the land for half the produce; the landlord taking onehalf, and the tenant the other.

For two hours and a half, pafs a wafte mountain covered with fhrubs, and fcatteredwith ever-green oaks, and lower down the evident remains of old terraces, which haveonce been cultivated, but now over-run with weeds. To Fulca; the ploughs here haveall long beams, as in the l'outh of France , which reach to the yokes of the oxen, andconfequently they have no traices; two fmall fticks form the mould-board; theyplough all flat.

In this diftrift not one acre in an hundred cultivated, all rocks, fhrubs, and weeds,with patches of wretched oats on the mountain fides. The road leads up one which isall of (tone, covered with rofemary, box, brambles, &c. At the top break at once on.the view of a deep vale, or rather glen, at the bottom of which a muddy river hasfpoiled the little land which might have been cultivated. The hills are fteep, and allis cultivated there that could be fo, but the quantity very fmall.

Defcend into a very rich vale, and to the town of Paous. There we faw many per-fons Winding filk, the cocoons were in warm water, and wound off by a well-contrivedreel, fomething different from thofe ufed in France .

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