Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1860-01-24

at S3OO year; steward upon eaeh farm at
$500 year; plowman to each pair OF horses
year, with food and lodging one shepherd
to each farm at $500 year, with cottage pro-
vided cattle-men, with their wives, who re-
ceve the same sum as the plowmen. Soldiers
are allowed to work when labor cannot be had
and receive about thirty cents day for their
labor. "The wife of the farm manager or
steward on each farm undertakes the boarding
of all the servants" receiving for each
500 per annum, and about pint of milk
daily. and about $50 year is allowed the
steward for the bedding of each man-the
beds furnished by the employer. The break
fast allowed is coffee and milk, with what
bread and one or two eggs between four and
five in the morning soup and beef with wine
at midday and the same a second time at
night. The wine furnished is a red cham
payne, not sparkling to each, which would be
sold here most likely for dollar or more per
bottle, but which costs at home eight or ten
cents
The soil upon these farms is mostly thin
and challly, "there being little argillaceous
sllicious or vegetable matter present." The
price paid for the land by government was so
per acre or thereabouts but it seems that re-
publican authorities are not the only ones who
find prices rise when they come into a market
as buyers, if the farther statement be true
acre in the district. 1t is thought moreover
that from $4,000 to $4,000 has also been
invested for stock, &C., upon each farm
As the land was bought primarily for mil
itary purposes, the price paid is less a
matter of Importance than if farming had
been the sole object upon Them it is a little
singular moreover that precisely the same
ground was occupied by military encamp.
ment of the Emperor Attila in the old Roman
days, and in some features of their culture the
people here still follow Roman customs, as,
for instance, in the way of attaching horses to
the roller by "ropes or chains upwards of
forty feet long in some instances" so that
animals were altogether nearly fifty feet from
the implement.
DAIRY FARM-rHE PROGRESS OF A CENTURY.
l have quoted these details from among
many others, as throwing some light upon the
prices of labor and land in that part of France,
as well as because they show with what ener-
gy the Emperor is going forward in the work
he has begun. Near the Palace of St Cloud
there is another farm more Immediately under
the superintendent of his Majesty-the farm
and Palace of Villeneuve. The manager, it
is said, takes his directions personally from
Napoleon, who frequently rides over from St
Cloud, distance'of about two miles, early in
the morning. The chiefpurpose of this estab-
lishment is to serve as a dairy farm for the
supply of the Palace and numerous breeds
have here been experimental with for dairy
purposes
The history of French Agriculture shows
thrt two hundred years ago it was probably
superior to that of Great Britain. In 1900
appeared the Theatre d. Agricultmrs of Oliver
de Serres of which Lavergne speaks as being
"both the best and oldest treatise in any Ian
guage," and as showing that call the good
systems OF agriculture" were then known In
1921 England bought large quantities of wheat
from her Gallo neighbors; twenty years later
boys and tens were drained; it was in France
that agricultural societies "were first estab-
lished says Loudon 'under the patronage
and at the expense Of the government" Sub
sequently this progress languished. After
1888, farming in France declined, or to say the
best, did not flourish with the same vigor with
which it then began to move forward on the
other side eff the English Channel. 1t is an
interesting feature that a statute to de Series
was last year inaugurated in the department
of PArdeche, as | learn from the Bulletin of
the Imperial and Central A gricultural Society,
whose delegates were present at the ceremony.
The lowest point reached was probably about
a hundred years ago. In 1855 the land-taX
was taken off for twenty years from farms
newly broken up. Since then, according to
the best statstcilns, the production of wheat
has nearly tripled and that of oats quadruped;
probably one-tenth the number of cattle now
annually slaughtered were then found suffi-
cient the total number in the country was
not more than one-half of that in our day.
Six thousand horses for postal service could
not be had, says Lavergne, in 1776. The pop
ulation Of sixteen or eighteen millions, were
in most wretched condition. Lands rented
for from twenty to ninety cents an acre. The
day began to brighten, however, and although
clouded over during the bloody scenes amid
which the eighteenth century closed, since
the nineteenth opened has been gradually
growing clearer and better Correspondence of
Luther r. Tucker, in the Country Gentsman