The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1879-02-14
FRENCH FARMING.

On Sunday the farmers mother comes
into the yard and wants me to sit down
with Madame l.. and herself for a little
gossip. She wants me to wear cap.
She says that | am thin, and | reprove
her for being complimentary. She offers
me pinch of snuff, and again wants
to know if America is 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. |
see none of our great reaping machines
here. Madame the farmer has a great
deal to do this day. Her domestic is in
the field IN the morning guarding the OK
en-, COWS, and calves that are grazing
While she is thus acting as shepherdess,
she sews, krits, or spins for the family.
To see her going out with distaff 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 the men vegetable soup or oc-
casionally rice soup with milk in f.
After the soup there will be omlets-I
am told that it will take three or four
for so maryland 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 it three
times a day. Atthree she will go to the
fields again with the animals. This
care must be used las there are no fences.
At four O'Clock the men will have a
lunch in the field; some one will come
md hnlT tt,sa1 4n1- - VI
will have bread, cheese, and salad.
"And wine ?" l ask.
THAT is a matter of course They
drink wine at the four meals; but if
they are thirsty between, they take pl-
quette. They do not drink water; they
don't like it," says Madame L.
Harvest hands get meat once day-at
breakfast there is bit of bacon in the
soup, except on Friday-say something
more than pound for so many men,
Then there are bread and cheese at break
fast. The supper is at eight, and is soup,
bread and cheese again. (Madame LIS
cheeses resemble dutch cheeses," or lit
tie pats, made in Pennsylvania from
smearcase or cottage cheese) After harvest
is finished they Will have the revel (riUOk
te). This is a supper where madame
will have 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 a
couple of rabits-rabbits stewed with
wine and there will be, moreover, bread
and salad and wine at the ricOLEe
The farm is planted in the following
manner: In vines, about ten acres; in
meadow there are twenty; in rye, TWEEN
ty; in wheat, five; in potatoes, five; in
oats, two and a half Maze or Indian
oil
to cattle. 1t is cut at the height of about
two and a half feet, when quite tender,
and is given to the animals in their sta
bles. Grass seeds are never sown in this
district; but when a field has been cult
waited 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 nat
ural grasses to grow, and their ANIMALS
Craze, under the care of a shepherd or
shepherdess, and generally of a shep-
herds dog. Pierre values their shepherd
dog at one hundred francs; but his moth
er tells me that he is worth about half
that sum; that her son puts value on him
because he loves him; he was worth il
once, but now he is getting old. The
shepherd dog is only taxed one franc a
year, the other five.
have spoken of there being twenty
acres in meadow in the LesmOntagnes
farm, and Pierre tells me that meadows
in France are never titled. They endea-
vor to water them, and if there is no
stream, they try to find a spring, where
they will make deep hole or pond, and
thence conduct the waters by means of
little bitches or canals. You can see
meadows on the sides of the hills crossed
lengthwise by these bitches. These
meadows are rarely MANFRED, the man.
ure being wanted for the vines, which
pay better. One-thIrd OF of the manure
is put upon the wheat and two-thirds on
the vines. Generally by the beginning
of June the water ceases to flow through
the meadow bitches. There are usually
two cuttings of grass taken from the
meadows, one in June and July, the 9TH
er in September and October; but if not
well enough grown, it can be pastured.
have said that these meadows are never
titled. Pierre thinks that theirs has not
been ploughed for three hundred years,
and conjectures that some In France have
not been broken up for a thousand-
Phebe Earle Gibbons, in Harper's Mag
azine for February.