The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1879-01-24
French Farming.

On ounuay 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 am thin, and reprove her foI
not being complimentary. She offers me
a pinch of snuff, and again wants to know
whether 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 and moving machines
here. Madame the farmer has great deal
to do this day. Her domestic is in the
field in the morning guarding the oxen,
cows and calves that are grazing. While
she is thus acting as a shepherdess she
sews, knits, or spins for the family. To see
her going out with a 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 occasionally rice soup
with milk in it. After 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, walnut
oil, salt, pepper, and a little garlic. Mad
anne l.. tells me that they are not ill fed
At noon the domestic milks the cows and
the goat, for she does it three times day
At three she will go 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 it out
They will have bread, cheese, and salad
"And wine 2" ask.
"That is matter of course. They drink
wine at the four MEALS but if they are thirs-
ty between, they take piquette. 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 breakfast. The
supper is at eight, and is soup, bread, and
cheese again. (Madame LIS cheeses resem-
BILE "Dutch cheeses," OF little pats, made in
Pennsylvania from smearcase, or cottage
cheese.) After harvest is finished they Will
have the revel (rioolle) This is q supper
where madame the farmer will have ham
or shoulder boiled-for they call shoulders
hams. Then they will have other meat; if
there are so many men, perhaps there will
be couple of rabbts-rabbts stewed with
wine; and there will be, moreover, bread
and salad and wine at the riD0lle.
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-hali. Maize or Indian corn is
also sown, but only to be fed green to cat
tie. 1t is cut at the height of about two
and a-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
shepherd or shepherdess, and generally of
shepherds dog. Pierre values their shep
herd dog at one hundred francs but his
mother tells me that he is worth about half
that sum; that her son puts that value on
him because he loves him he was worth
it once, but now he is getting old. The
shepherd dog is only taxed one franc a year,
the Others five.
l have spoken of there being twenty acres
in meadow on the Lesmontagnes farm, and
Pierre tells me that meadows in France are
never titled. They endeavor to water them,
and if there is no stream, they try to find
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 cross
ed lengthwise by these bitches. These
meadows are rarely MANFRED, the manure
being wanted or the vines, which pay bet
ter. One-third 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 other in September and Oc
tober; 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
housand.-Phebe Earle Gibbons, in Ha,per's
Magazine for February.