Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-06-26
Letter to Boston Advertiserl
Eoreirn Farms and Farming.

In England the fields are immense +;
the country is beautifully undulatlng
every inch of ground is well kept, and
all the division lines between estates are
marked by weIl-trimmed hedges. In all
of England did not see ragged hedge.
In the most unfrequented field the hedge
would be trimmed as nicely as In gen
tleman's grounds. But in all farming
onerations the English are very clumsy,
though very thorough. Their tools are
heavy and awkwardly made, but last
through generations. l saw IN one IN
stance a man ploughing with six horses,
through ground that had been once
nleughed in the fall, and using plough
that must have weighed six times, al
least. as much as Yankee plough, cap
able of doing the same work. In TACT
all the work he was doing might have
easily been done with a pair of tough
Canada ponies, Yankee plough, and
Yankee man to hold 1T.
In France the farming operations are
still more awkwardly perfOrmed-and a
oreat deal of the hardest field labor is
done by women. While at Loverdun,
Mace forty miles from Paris, | strolled
in a field where ten women were spread
inc manure with forks that weighed not
less than fifteen pounds apiece, and L
should think more. They were evident
ly made by some rude country black
smith. and had to recommend them the
sinple quality of strength. The French
| neasant women | think are the nearest
approach to brutes that can be found IN
| the ranks of humanity. They don I
seem half as intelligent as the beautiful
French horses, and it isnot unfrequently
| the case that bright boy of dozen
wears old is sent to superintend field
| full of them, and keep them from chat
tering and quarreling. Some of these
field hands are fearfully old and fright
| fully ugly; | feel sure that | saw women
| more than eighty years old working IN
| the fields, and doing what would be con-
sidered a mans work in America. They
| live in wretched huts and on the coarsest
black bread and on the sOurest wine.
In travelling through France / was
! struck with the fact that the roofs OF
| the houses were all either matched or
covered with tiles-burnt to red color
| like our bricks. On some of the matched
roofs | saw quite luxuriant growths
of grass, and though | did not
see any cows driven on to the roofs to
pasture, | did see in numerous instances
| bows sent on the roof with sickles to cut
the grass, which was always longer and
greener than in the fields. In the jour
| nev from Paris to Munich we passed for
the first forty or fifty miles through a
stretch of country quite fiat and beauti-
| fully cultivated in small gardens devoted
to the raising of salads and small fruits.
! Then we came to the billy country,
where for miles nothing but vineyards
were to be seen. Here was where a
great deal of the light French wine is
made. The vineyards are beautifully
kept, the vines being planted within two
or three feet of each other, and not al
| lowed to grow more than four feet high
| When we came along they were tying
up the vines to the stakes, they having
been laid down for protection through
the winter. As we approached Munich
the country became fiat and uninterest-
| ing, and vineyards gave place to wheat
| fields. When we came to Austria l saw
the most beautiful fields of all Some
| times they would be miles in width and
covered for the whole distance with
young grain of a most beautiful green.
| Here, too, were women working in the
fields, but of much greater intelligence
than the French peasants. In Austria
the farms are immense. The farm
houses are likewise very large and in
variably built round a court yard. At
Linz | went into one Sixty cows were
kept and twenty horses, and $50 labor
ers-men, women and children-lived
under one roof; the head farmer or land
man being a petty prince in his own
right. You will see by this that every
Austrian farm is a small colony. The
entrance to the courtyard is through an
archway big enough to drive a large
load of hay, and over it is always paint
sd picture of the Virgin or some pat
| ron saint.