Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1884-09-19
FRENCH FARMS AND FARMERS.
What an American Traveller Saw I'm
France.

Dion, says an American traveller, we
pass through the best portion of France.
For hundreds of miles every inch of land
is cultivated. The abrupt side hills are
in grape vines and the fiat land in grain.
Here we see the phenomenon of double
crOps-a crop of grain and vegetables
growing under a crop of trees. The
Normandy poplar trees are from an inch
to three feet in diameter. They are
planted thickly, but give no shade. They
are trimmed within six feet of the tops.
The boughs, which are cut off every
year, make faggots enough to warm
France. We often see men and women
grading wheat or hoeing beets in the
midst of a wood giving no shade. When
you look across the country the tall,
bOughless trunks look like black streaks
painted against the sky. They make the
view very picturesque. Our farmers on
the prairies could plant black walnut
trees where they want fences, and then
string barbed wire on the trunks for
fences. At the end of fifty years the
black walnut trees on q mans farm
would be worth more than his farm
Wood in France is sold for a third of a
cent pound. 1t is worth as much as
corn in Kansas by the pound. So when
the Kansas man burns corn, he is no more
profigate than the Frenchman who
burns faggots. The French farmer would
never think of burning wood to heat his
house. He sits in the cold all the win.
ter long, only using wood to cook with.
The average farmer does not know
enough to buy coal or kerosene yet. He
does not live as well as the poorest negro
in the South. He has no home COM
forts; poverty and ignorance ore his
companions.
France is literally one large garden.
Every inch OF soil is cultivated. In
riding from Paris to Dion, $50 miles,
we counted only thirty cattle. We saw
no sheep or hogs. The farms have
usually from one to ten acres. Some
farms have half an acre, and some have
as many as twenty acres. They are
usually from thirty to 800 feet wide and
and from 1900 to 2,o0O feet long.
There are no fences between them.
When l asked a French farmer how
his farm happened, like all the rest, to
be so long and narrow, he said:
cit has been divided up so often.
When French farmer dies, he divides
his farm, and each one of his children
has an equal share. He always divides
it lengthwise, so as to give each one q
long strip, The long strips are easily
cultivated, because we pillow lengthways.
These strips always run north and south,
so that the sun can shine into the rows. u
GLOW large is your farm2" I asked.
"My fathers farm was 800 feet wide
and 1000 feet long. When he died my
brother had half. Now my farm is 100
feet wide and 1900 feet long. 1t is
quite large farm. There are many
farms much smaller than mine"
"What do you plant in it9" 1 asked.
"See over there" he said, pointing to
what seemed to be a gigantic piece Of
striped carpet, sis strip of wheat sixty
feet wide. Then comes strip of pota
toes twenty-five feet wide. Then comes
forty feet of oats, then ten feet of carrots,
twenty feet of alfalfa Quzerne), ten feet
Of gel-wurzels, five feet of onions,
five feet of cabbage, and the rest is in
flowers, peas, currants, gooseberries and
little vegetables"
"Can you support your family on 6
farm $50 wide and 1900 feet long2"
asked; for the narrow strip seemed like
mans dooryard in America.
Support my family9" he exclaimed
"Why, the farm is too large for us.
rent part Of it out now"
"But your house." I said, "where il
that2"
ooh, that is in the town. Five fami
lies of us live in one house there. Ny
wife and come out every morning t.
work and go home at night"
Does your wife always work in thu
feldT'
Eyes. My wife," he continued, point
ing to barefooted and bare headed
woman, at least six feet around the waist
''she can do more work than can. ShC
pitches the hay to me on the stack. AL
French women work in the field. Why
note They have nothing to do at home.
This is true. The wife of French
English, Irish or German farmer ha
nothing to do at home. They do no
keep house" like the wives of American
farmers, The handsome farm house of
by itself, surrounded by trees and gar
dens do not exist in France. Frencl
farmers always congregate in little tumble
down villages situated about two mile
apart. These villages may have beer
built three hundred years ago. TIL,
roofs are moss covered, the houses ar,
dirty, and remind one of country poo
house in New England.
There are millions of farms in Franc,
containing from quarter of an acre tt
four acres.
1 find that an acre and half is abou
all the most ambitious man wants. TIL,
rent for land is always one half the crop
The land is worth about $500 an acre
or, if in grape vines, 5000.
This is why France is like garden
In France there are 227, 900 landown
ers; in France there are 7,000,0 900 land
owners. The Frenchmen ON his tw,
acres, with his barefooted wife cuttin!
grain with sickle by his side, is happ
and contented, because he knows no bet
ter. Such degrading life would driv
an American farmer mad. The French
man thrives because he spends nothing
He has no wants beyond the coarses
food and the washings of the grape skin
after the wine is made Yes, he is thrifty
He saves money, too. The aggregated
wealth of 3O,O00,O0O poor, degraded
barefooted peasants makes France rich
The ignorance of the French farmer
appalling. never saw q newspaper i
French farm village. Their wants ar
no more than the wants of horse. TIL
Frenchman eats the coarsest food abou
the same as he feeds his horse. He Wi
eat coarse bread and wine for breakfast
SOM bread and wine for dinner an,