During the Years 1787, 1788, and 1789. UNDERTAKEN MORE PARTICULARLY WITH A VIEW OF ASCERTAINING THE CULTIVATION, WEALTH, RESOURCES, AND NATIONAL PROSPERITY, OF THE KINGDOM OF FRANCE. THE SECOND EDITION. VOL. II. BY ARTHUR YOUNG, Esq. F. R. S. رہا SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE; HONORARY MEMBER OF THE SOCIETIES OF DUBLIN, OF CELLE; ASSOCIATE OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF AGRICULTURE THE PATRIOTIC SOCIETY AT MILAN. BURY ST. EDMUND'S: PRINTED BY J. RACKHAM, FOR W. RICHARDSON, ROYAL-EXCHANGE, LONDON. 1794. TRAVELS, &c. T CHAP. Χ. Vines. HE number of notes I took, in most of the provinces of the kingdom, relative to the culture of vineyards, was not inconfiderable; but the difficulty of reducing the infinite variety of French measures, of land and liquids, to a common standard, added to an unavoidable uncertainty in the information itself, renders this the most perplexing inquiry that can be conceived. It was an object to ascertain the value given to the foil by this culture; the amount of the annual produce; and the degree of profit attending it; inquiries not undeserving the attention even of politicians, as the chief interests of a country depend, in some measure, on such points being well understood. Now there is scarcely any product so variable as that of wine. Corn lands and meadow have their bad and their good years, but they always yield something, and the average produce is rarely far removed from that of any particular year. With vines the difference is enormous; this year they yield nothing; in another, perhaps, casks are wanted to contain the exuberant produce of the vintage; now the price is extravagantly high; and again so low, as to menace with poverty all who are concerned in it. Under such variations, the ideas even of proprietors, who live by the culture, are not often correct, in relation to the medium of any circumstance: nor is it always easy to bring individuals to regard rather the average of a district, than the particular one of their own fields. In many cases it is more fatisfactory to rely on particular experience, when it appears tolerably exact, than to demand ideas, so often vague of what is not immediately within the practice of the man who speaks. These difficulties have occurred so often, and in so many shapes, that the reader can hardly imagine the labour which it repeatedly cost VOL. II. B me me to gain that approximation to accuracy, which I was fortunate enough fometimes to attain. But, after all the inquiries I have made, with attention and industry, I do not presume to infert here an abstract of my notes as intelligence that can be entirely relied on: I am satisfied, that it is impossible to procure such, without application, time, and exertions, which are not at the command of many travellers. Contenting myself, therefore, with the probability of being free from gross errors, and with the hope of giving some information on the fubject, not to be found in other books, I venture to submit the following extract to the public eye, though it be a result inadequate to the labour, variety and expected success of my inquiries. It is necessary farther to premise, that the reader must not contrast the circumstance of one place with those of another, under the idea that a confiderable difference is any proof of error in the account. The price of an arpent is sometimes out of proportion to the produce, and the profit at other times unaccounted for by either:-this depends on demand, competition, the division of properties, the higher or lower ratio of expence, and on various other circumstances, which, to explain fully in each article, would be to enlarge this single chapter into a volume; I touch on it here, merely to guard against conclufions, which are to be made with caution. The towns named in the following table, are the places where I procured intelligence.None are inferted in which I did not make the inquiry, as I was at every place mentioned in the margin. The rents of vines are named but at few places; for they are very rarely in any other hands than those of the proprietor; even where rent is named, there is not one acre in an hundred let. The price of the product is every where that of the same autumn as the vintage: those who can afford to keep their wine have much greater profits: but as that is a species of merchandize as much in the power of a dealer as of a planter, it ought not to be the guide in such accounts as these. ISLE OF FRANCE. - Arpajon.-Rent of fome to 80 liv.; in common 25 liv. Expences in labour, exclusive of vintage, 60 liv. (21. 10s. 9d. per English acre). Produce, 6 pieces, of 80 pints, each 1 bottle. Estampes. Measure 80 perch, of 22 feet. Produce, 10 to 22 pieces. Rent to 90 liv. Labour, 60 liv. (21. 13s. 9d. per English acre), vintage excluded. Orleans.-Price in the town 150 liv. the piece, of 240 bottles, and retail 6 to 10. the pint, of 1 bottle. Rent, 45 liv. Labour, 40 liv. vintage excluded (11. 135. 9d. per English acre.) Arpent of 40,000 feet. S. of ditto.-Measure 100 perch, of 20 feet. Produce, 7 pieces, and in a good year 12. Rent, 36 liv. Labour, 40 liv. (11. 135. 10d. per English acre). SOLOGNE.-Verson.-Rent in common, 35 to 50 liv. of the best 60 liv. the sétérée. Produce, 10 to 12 pieces, and to 22. Account here, Rent, They renew some of the vines every year, by laying down shoots, called generally provins, but here fausses, five hundred per annum, at 50. the hundred. They manure to the amount of thirteen small cart loads, not reckoned in the above account. Twenty people necessary for gathering an arpent, at 12/. a day, and food. Vines are sometimes much damaged by frosts in the spring. BERRY.-Vatan. -No props; give four hoeings. Fausse 1 liv. 158. the hundred. Rarely let. Produce, 3 pieces per sétérée, some 6 or 8; price now 24 liv. Rent, 60 liv. Produce, 168 liv. (61. 13s. Iod. per English acre.) To plant a sétérée, for setting only, 45 liv. to 48 liv. ; for two years produces nothing; the third a little. All agree it is the most profitable husbandry, if one be not obliged to sell in the vintage, for want of capital to keep the wine. Chateauroux. Very few let. Earth them four times. Produce, 3 poinçons, or pieces, a sestere. Rent, 60 liv. Argenton.-Produce 5 or 6 pieces the sétérée, each piece 160 bottles. Planted about 2 feet 6 inches square. Use props of quartered oak. QUERCY.-Brive. A journal one-fourth of a sétérée, 0,4132 (Paucton.) In a good year produce 2 muids, of 242 pints of 2 bottles, but not general. Price, 3 to 6. the pint. Labour, 15 liv. vintage excluded. Pont de Rodez.-The plants at 4 feet square; very old and large. Every where quite clean, and in fine order, worked four times. Price, 6 liv. for 96 Paris pints. Cartona about half an acre. Pellecoy.-Pass vineyards, of which there are many so steep, that it is strange how men can stand at their work. One-third of the country under vines, which are planted on absolute rocks, but calcareous. Cahors.-Nineteen-twentieths under vines; in regular rows, at 4 feet; many more than two hundred years old. The true vin de Cahors, which has a great reputation, is the product of a range of rocky vineyards, that are upon hills hanging to the south, and is called grave wine, because of the stoney soil. Much subject to storms of hail. Measure the sétérée, not quite an arpent. Produce, 4 barriques, each 210 common bottles. Price, 50 liv.; sometimes at 20 or 30 liv.; and if two or three plentiful years together, the price of the wine does not exceed the cafk; last year 12 liv.; 50 liv. the barrique, is 3 liv. the dozen. B2 |