Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1879-04-11
French Farming.

On Sunday the farmers mother
comes into the yard and wants me to
sit down with Madame L. and herself
for little gossip. She wants me to
wear a cap. She says that am thin,
and reprOve her for not being COM
plimentary. She offers me pinch of
snuff. and again wants to know wheth-
er America is a part of France. She
does not work in the garden, like our
" Pennsylvania Dutch" women; but
hers are working hands. One day her
son is very busy cutting large field of
rye, and they have eleven extra men.
L see none of our great reaping and
moving machines here. Madame the
farmer has a great deal to do this day.
Her domestic is in the fieldin the morn
ing guarding the oxen, COWS and calves
that are grazing. While she is thus
acting as shepherdess she sews, knits
or spins for the family. To see her
going out with distaf of hemp was
quite novel to me. At eleven o'clock
she comes in to help madame the
granger with the dinner. Madame will
give re men vegetable soup, or Occa-
sion. V rice soup with milk in it. Aft
er the soup there will be omelets-I am
told that it will take three or four for
so many men-and there will be bread
and cheese, salad and wine. The cheese
is made from milk after the cream is
taken off, or from goats milk, pure.
The salad is dressed with vinegar, wal
nut oil, salt, pepper and little garlic.
Madame L. tells me that they are not
i'll fed. At noon the domestic milks
the COWS and the goat, for she does i5
three times a day. At three she will
20 to the fields again with the animals.
This care must be used, as there are no
fences. at four o'clock the men will
have a lunch in the field; some one
will come and help the mother take il
cut. They will have bread, cheese and
salad.
Harvest hands get meat once a day
at breakfast there is a bit of bacon in
the soup, except on Friday-say some
thing more than a pound for so many
men. Then there are bread and cheese
at breakfast. The supper is at eight,
and is soup, bread and cheese again.
(Mme. LIS cheeses resemble "Dutch
cheeses," or little pats, made in Penn
sylVania from smearcase, or cottage
cheese.) After harvest is finished they
will have the revel (riUOlle.) This is a
supper where madame the farmer will
have a ham or shoulder boiled-fOr
they call shoulders hams. Then they
will have some other meat; if there are
so many men, perhaps there will be
couple of rabbits-rabbits stewed with
wine; and there will be, moreover,
bread and salad and wine at the TivOlLe.
The farm is planted in the following
manner: In vines, about ten acres; in
meadow there are twenty; in rye,
twenty; in wheat, five; in potatoes,
five; in oats, two and a half Maize or
Indian corn is also sown, but only to be
fed green to cattle. 1t is cut at the
height of about two and q half feet,
when quite tender, and is given to the
animals in their stables. Grass seeds
are never sown in this district; but
when a field has been cultivated and
the harvest gathered, whether of wheat,
oats, or anything else, then they do not
fatigue the ground, even in the plain,
the second year, but allow the natural
grasses to grow, and there animals
Craze, under the care Of a shepherd or
shepherdess, and generally of shep-
herd'~ A~1 Pierre values their shep-
20 francs; but his mother
Ut half