14,000,000 eggs, and 119,222 living poultry. Near Rennes the breed of cattle is heavier and more fitted for the butcher than in the Channel Islands, where they are prized solely for their milking properties. Jersey market competes with Great Britain for some of these, and takes about 4,000 bullocks a-year. The impetus given to agriculture in France by the present Emperor has been felt in Brittany. Considerable improvements have taken place. I saw to-day a man thrashing corn with a flail; this is becoming a rare sight in some districts. It is a curious illustration of the habits of the people, to notice women at the various crossings as gate-keepers. They wear a short gown, no crinoline, a glazed hat, and have a bugle suspended by a belt at one side; they seemed to discharge their duties in an admirable manner. Rennes, which is built at the confluence of the rivers Ille and Vilaine, is the capital of the department called after them, Ille-et-Vilaine; this department and Mayenne form part of the old province of Brittany. The united rivers flow by Dinan to St. Malo, and are navigable for barges. Rennes has a population of 45,664. The streets are straight; the houses, which appear to have been built a century and a half ago, are lofty, solid, substantial structures. It has several fine squares and promenades. I met at the Hôtel de France an English lady, who, after having spent some time in the south of France, had come here for a change. She seemed quite alone, and was living as a pensionnaire, or boarder, at the hôtel. She appeared to like Rennes, which is the capital of the district. The dense population has been favourable to the extended culture of the land, and proves the truth of the assertion which may almost be assumed as an axiom, that just in proportion to the reduction in the number of farms on a given area, will be the reduction in the produce of the district. Goldsmith has poetically, yet philosophically, expressed this idea in the language One single master grasps the wide domain, And half a tillage stints the smiling plain. The word agri-culture includes two ideas-land and labour. Just as the amount of labour is lessened and the consolidation of farms and emigration of the people effects this-so is the produce of the land. As nations go back to the more barbarous system of pasturage, so do they lessen the quantity of food. Some decry the French subdivision of land, and pretend that it is vicious in itself, and injurious to the agriculture of the country. I have been through this district, and think I have hardly seen a field of three acres in my journey. The minute subdivision has been going on at least since the promulgation of the Code Napoleon in 1804. Arthur Young, who wrote in 1787, says it prevailed in this province at that time. I think it has existed much longer, but it has certainly been in operation for sixty-four years. What, then, are its effects? The reply will be found in a comparison of the area under wheat and barley in 1815 and 1847. I have tried to get the returns of the later census, and perhaps may do so in Paris, but I have not yet seen it.* That before me illustrates * Extent under Wheat and Barley in Ille-et-Vilaine and the subject as regards these two departments, each about the size of one of our English counties, and proves that in both districts there has been an increase -in one of about 25 per cent., in the other of nearly 33 per cent. This increase in cereals must have been followed by a corresponding increase in other crops, as it is impossible to continue to increase the cultivation of grain without growing others in rotation. This is rendered feasible by the large quantity of manure from the increased production of straw. The true idea of a rotation is, one crop for man, the next for beast; if this were pursued, the grain, &c. consumed in the district where it is raised, and proper economy with manure observed, land could not deteriorate. Mr. Young, when writing of the agriculture of this district in 1787, pronounced it execrable. He estimated the produce of corn land in France as only eighteen bushels per acre, while that of England was twenty-five bushels per acre. The average produce of wheat in France in 1815 was 19 hectolitres per hectare; in 1847 it was 29 hectolitres per hectare. Instead of pursuing the line of route in the southerly direction, which would have taken me on toward Nantes, I took that to the east, being the main line from Brest to Paris. The farming of the district continued without much change. The agriculture of the department of Mayenne seemed to be better than that of Ille-et-Vilaine. There was a larger increase in the area under wheat and barley, but a still greater increase in the yield of wheat. In 1815, the wheat crop of the department of Mayenne was estimated at 936,000 hectolitres; in 1847 it had increased to 2,397,386 hectolitres, being more than double. Laval, the chief town in this department, has a population of 21,293. The river Mayenne is crossed by a viaduct 178 mètres long, having nine arches.* · Still pursuing the route eastward, we reach the department of Sarthe, in which there are larger farms, but the agriculture appears less progressive, more at a standstill than in those through which I had passed. Le Mans, the chief town in this department, has a population of 36,694. It is quite a railway centre, as the line running east and west is crossed by one running north and south. That to the north passes into Normandy, and passing through Alençon, a town of 16,173 inhabitants, in the department of Sarthe, it reaches Mezidon, a town in Calvados, on the line between Cherbourg and Paris, from which it is easy to get to Rouen. NORMANDY. Rouen.-What Englishman is there who has read the history of his country, whose blood does not flow quicker at the name of this cradle-home of national institutions? The Anglo-Saxon, as the race is called, is more allied by race to the Scandinavian than to the Gothic. Hengist and Horsa, with their followers, were not Teutons. Saxonia, as known to the Romans, was the region about which Austria and Prussia fought with the Danes, and which is still the fertile occasion for division among the German Powers. *Messrs. Sturge of Birmingham say in their Grain Circular of November 2, 1865, 'In the French markets prices have not risen so much as in ours, so that considerable purchases of wheat and flour have been made on English, Scotch, and Irish account principally at Nantes.' ROLF-RANGER, OR ROLLO. 27 It lay between the Elbe and the Baltic: we now call it Schleswig-Holstein. The aboriginal English race, trained to effeminacy by the protection of the Romans, instead of fighting out the battle with the Picts, sought the protection of its Scandinavian neighbours. It did not go into central Germany, to a nation without ships, but invited one accustomed to the sea. It is strange how prone we are, with matters of history, to continue to run on in the same groove; thus, the Anglo-Saxons consider themselves part of the Teutonic instead of the Scandinavian family: and the great German people, which is descended from the Geta or Goths, mentioned by Heredotus, whose armies met and defeated those of Rome, instead of tracing its origin to the great nation from which it sprung, has claimed a nationality from a petty tribe, whose heroic deeds we look for in vain in the roll of history. The same occurred in later days, The new world discovered by Columbus, instead of boasting of the name of Columbia, takes its imposing cognomen from one of the followers of the great navigator-from one who did not deserve to hold a candle to his master. Thus, too, in later days we are accustomed to give Ricardo the credit for being the author of ideas about banking and joint-stock companies, when he was only the pupil of Mr. Joplin, who started the 'Economist,' and who is in reality the parent of the joint-stock system. The Danes were twin brothers of the Saxons, and the laws promulgated by Knut (Canute) the Dane, King of England, do not differ in principle from those of the Saxon Atheling. William of Normandy was one of the same stock. His ancestor, Rolf-Ranger, or Rollo, was expelled from Norway early in the 10th century, |