Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-11-10


morning they stop work for an hour and
take their second breakfast. At 1 O'Clock
noon they knock off for two hours of din
ner time; and in the evening they march
back to the village with their brothers,
lovers and husbands by their sides. To
marry and keep this life up is the peasant
girls chief wish. To emgrate to Paris
means she has no dot" 1t means an
exile.
French peasant girls are pleased to work
out in the fields. And they have redder
cheeks and bigger appetites, bigger chest
measurements and more good fun than sick
ly factory girls In any city. II IL be true that
the two chief prizes In a woman's life are
to be happy In her husband and her chill
dren, then peasant girls in France do Well
The industry and downright misery coyet-
| BUSINESS with which the inexpensive gaiety
of the French peasant life Is tinctured
brings into being that prosperity which is
the surest guarantee of dignity in wedlock
The peasant girl, though she be ugly as
blue mud, is sure to find husband; viii be
rewarded with husband for her industry
Her father and her mother see to that. A
husband does not only mean a pink-cheek ed
| lover out of cheap novel 1t means the
girl VIII set up an establishment just as
her parents did-an honorable place in life.
with comforts growing yearly, with dignity,
solidity and consideration in the village.
Manufactures and Farming.
Where girls are stingy and caretaking,
men are sure to prosper. SO the whole peas
ant life of France is close, mean, stmgy-
and so prospercus Personally, / am ac-
| quainted only with the Norman peasant
But he is the banner carrier for sharpness
and enlightened stvarice. And as he ADDS
to these two qualities the amiable weakness
of hard drinking, be should be all the more
| a sympathetic figure for Americans.
The Norman peasant is careful farmer
but he mikes The pronts OF manufactures
with the profits of his farming. Beyond
RcLen the whole life is combina ton of
| rural and industrial activity. 1t is strange
| sight to Americans to drive through fat,
| bea utifully cultivated farming country.
where graceful popiars line the level roads
where hawthorn hedges red with berries or
| wild plum hedges glittering with blue-pur-
| pie fruit mark OF the fields, where cattle
| pasture in the clover. where birds flutter in
the bushes, and where Sweet-faced loose
bodiced peasant girls swing through the
fields, to in this Arcadia the factory
chimneys rising here and there beyond the
trees.
Large Gotten manufacturers, instead of
budding in cities have a large habit of set
ting up their factories in the country Here.
In late fall and winter time the girls and
youths, and old folks, too, find paying work.
together with a sort of club life very socla-
BILE and easy going. The pay Is scarcely
half what factory girls get in America.
But then these French girls do not work
girls dependent on the factory.
The peasant proprietors themselves invest
their cash in cotton factories. The little
| Norman, farmers make things very hot for
manufacturers who will not let them have
| their finger IN the pie. The other manufac-
| turing establishments set up in these farm
| ing lands are even stiii more in the hands
of petty farners-beet root sugar works.
| cheese factories, and apple brandy distil-
leries. These canny Norman haySeeds also
manufacture pure French brandy out of
beets, wheat and potatoes. This Is the
mark of the Norman farmer. He Is a Jack
| Of al. trades. His farm takes many shapes.
1t may be a cider orchG I'D. asparagus
bed, a market garden, dairy. a vineyard
even (along the Norman COAST, mulberry
orchard, a sugar factory, poppy farm for
opium), or the whole farm may be laid out
In medical herbs of perfumers' flowers.
They Are Careful Farmers.
Look at a typical small farm in Nor
mandy. One hundred acres Is an extra
ordinarily large farm. The great majority
of good-sized farms have but from six to
fifteen acres. The present one is given up
to apples, clover, wheat, rye, and a very
great proportion of COLA. Cola is a kind
of rape or cabbage whose seed yields oil.
The Americans first impression is of
paralyZing, rigid uniformity and cut and
dried strict order. 1t Is routine, routine,
routine. Habits and customs remain sta
tionary, even at the same time when the
natives are so crafty and so knowing. Each
farm stands on a line of beech and oak as
regular and formal the toy trees in a
Noak's ark. These trees, regularly cut and
planted form square around the house
and outbuldings. An enormous barn is
devoted to cider making. This Norman
cider Is the pure juice of the apple without
the addition Of sugar. The apples remain
On the trees even until the last of Novem-
Der. They are mean little apples, unfit for
eating and scarcely good for cooking Cider
Is the common drink throughout all Nor
mandy, as wine Is in the other parts of
France. The drink is not a pleasing one
to us Americans. The stuff is sour, thin,
colicky. But sit is said that cider as a
steady drink viii not only prevent rheuma-
tism. but even cure or relieve 1t. And so
the Norman cider has great vogue In
France.
Every other detail of the farm is run
with mathematical uniformness. Cows are
not allowed to roam at will in meadows.
They are tethered to stakes, which give
them certain radius to Craze from. Each
cow must eat up clean the grass or clover
around its stake before she will be moved
onto another section Of the field. Instead
of going to the water, water is brought to
them. In Normandy the cows are not put
out to grass for the sole purpose of amusing
them. 10
This farm. which is very large one. is
Of eighty acres. 1t is supposed to be worth
about $4,000. 1t would rent for 81 900 a
year. The stock consists of forty head of
cattle. cows andr calves and six horses
lHc WAGES VI Hilcu IucIl, ana
lodged, are from $50 to $50 a year The
three-course system is followed on such
farms, third of the land being planted
with wheat, third with oats Glover being
sown after harvesD and a third with clover,
COLA, potatoes, beet root, carrots and pars-
nips. The parsnlp is largely cultivated for
the fattening of cattle and winter food for
cows. So is the carrot, which is considered
very advantageous in the production Of
good butter.
Saving the Pennies.
Such Is large farm anywhere in Nor
mandy. But all around such farms are
smaller ones. Marry my daughter and
take five acres with herr urges the small
farmer who has got on" in the struggle
for piece Of la belle France. Hired men,
in order to save up money to buy land, in
vest their precious dollars In a calf or lamb
and place them with a farmer to be nour-
ished. fattened and increase. All profits of
wool, milk, lambs and calves are equally
divided. 1t is not So much these honest
fellows who make up the notorious Norman