bably molasse. Under this] molasse are distinctly seen thin strata, probably of limestone, alternating with soft strata. There can be little doubt that the catastrophe was caused by the gradual erosion of the soft strata which undermined the mass of limestone above, and projected it into the plain; it is also probable that the part which fell had for some time been nearly detached from the mountain by a shrinking of the southern side, as there is at present a rent at this end, upwards of two thousand feet deep, which seems to have cut off a large section from the eastern end, and that now" Hangs in doubtful ruins o'er its base," as if prepared to renew the catastrophe of 1248.

333. Avalanches (avaler, to swallow), or falls of immense masses of snow from the mountains, often occasion dreadful effects. Villages are overwhelmed by them; and rivers, stopped in their course, inundate narrow vallies to a ruinous extent. In February 1820, the village of Obergestelen, with eighty-eight of its inhabitants, were overwhelmed by an avalanche.

334. The glaciers, or ice-hills, or ice-heaps, slide down into the mountain vallies, and form dams across them, which produce large lakes; by the breaking up of the glacier, these lakes are sometimes suddenly poured into the lower vallies, and do immense mischief. Man, in such a country, as Bakewell has observed, is in a constant state of warfare with the elements, and compelled to be incessantly on his guard against the powers that threaten his destruction. This constant exposure to super-human dangers is supposed to have given the aged inhabitants, especially of the Vallais, an air of uncommon seriousness and melancholy.

335. The Swiss cottages are generally formed of wood, with projecting roofs, covered with slates, tiles, or shingles. A few small enclosures surround or are contiguous to them, some of which are watered meadows, others dry pasture; and one or more is always devoted to the raising of oats, some barley, and rye, or wheat, for the family consumption. In the garden, which is large in proportion to the farm, are grown hemp, flax, tobacco, potatoes, white beet to be used as spinach and asparagus, French beans, cabbages, and turnips. The whole has every appearance of neatness and comfort. There are however some farmers who hire lands from the corporate bodies and others at a fixed rent; or on the metayer system; and in some cases both land and stock are hired; and peasants are found who hire so many cows and their keep, during a certain number of months either for a third or more of the produce, or for a fixed sum.

336. The villages of Switzerland are often built in lofty situations, and some so high as 5000 feet above the level of the sea. "In a country where land is much divided, and small proprietors cultivate their own property on the mountains, it is absolutely necessary that they should reside near it, otherwise a great part of their time and strength would be exhausted in ascending and descending, as it would take a mountaineer four hours in each day, to ascend to many of these villages and return to the valley. In building their houses on the mountains, they place them together in villages, when it can be done, and at a moderate distance from their property, to have the comforts of society, and be more secure from the attack of wolves and other wild animals. Potatoes and barley can be cultivated at the height of 4500 feet in Savoy, and these, with cheese and milk, and a little maize for porridge, form the principal part of the food of the peasantry. The harvest is over in the plains by the end of June, and in the mountains by the end of September. Several of the mountain villages, with the white spires of their churches, form pleasing objects in the landscape, but on entering them the charm vanishes, and nothing can exceed the dirtiness and want of comfort which they present, except the cabins of the Irish." (Bakewell's Travels, vol. i. 270.) Yet habit, and a feeling of independence, which the mountain peasant enjoys, under almost every form of government, makes him disregard the inconveniences of his situation and abode. Damsels and their flocks form pleasing groups at a distance, but the former viewed near, bear no more resemblance to les bergeres des Alpes of the poets, than a female Hottentot to the Venus de Medicis.

337. The vine is cultivated in several of the Swiss cantons on a small scale; and either against trellises, or kept low and tied to short stakes as in France. The grapes seldom ripen well, and produce a very inferior wine. The best in Switzerland are grown in the Pays de Vaud round Vevy. They are white, and Bakewell says, "as large and fineflavored as our best hot-house grapes.' The physicians at Geneva send some of their patients here during the vintage, to take what is called a regular course of grapes; that is, to subsist for three weeks entirely on this fruit, without taking any other food or drink. In a few days a grape diet becomes agreeable, and weak persons, and also the insane. have found great relief from subsisting on it for three or four weeks. (Bakewell's Travels, &c. ii. 206.)

338. Of fruit trees, the apple, pear, cherry, plum, and walnut, surround the small field or fields of every peasant. The walnut tree also lines the public roads in many places, and its dropping fruit often is the only food of the mendicant traveller.

339. The management of woods and forests forms a part of Swiss agriculture. The herbage is pastured with sheep and swine as in Italy; the copse wood and lop are used for fuel, as in all countries; and when a mode of conveyance and a market can be found the timber is sold, but in many places neither is the case. A singular construction was erected for the purpose of bringing down to the lake of Lucerne the fine pine trees which grow upon Mount Pilatus, by the engineer Rupp. The wood was purchased by a company for 3000l., and 9000l. were expended in constructing the slide. The length of the slide is about 44,000 English feet, or about eight miles and two furlongs; and the difference of level of its two extremities is about 2600 feet. It is a wooden trough,

about five feet broad and four deep, the bottom of which consists of three trees, the middle one being a little hollowed; and small rills of water are conducted into it, for the purpose of diminishing the friction. The declivity, at its commencement, is about 2240. The large pines, with their branches and boughs cut off, are placed in the slide, and descending by their own gravity, they acquire such an impetus by their descent through the first part of the slide, that they perform their journey of eight miles and a quarter in the short space of six minutes; and, under favourable circumstances, that is, in wet weather, in three minutes. Only one tree descends at a time, but, by means of signals placed along the slide, another tree is launched as soon as its predecessor has plunged into the lake. Sometimes the moving trees spring or bolt out of the trough, and when this happens, they have been known to cut through trees in the neighborhood, as if it had been done by an axe. When the trees reach the lake they are formed into rafts, and floated down the Reuss into the Rhine.

340. Timber is also floated down mountain torrents from a great height. The trees are cut down during summer and laid in the then dry bed of the stream: with the first heavy rains in autumn they are set in motion, and go thundering down among the rocks to the vallies, where what arrives sound is laid aside for construction, and the rest is used as fuel. 341. The chamois abound in some of the forests, and are hunted for their fat, flesh, and for their skins, which are valuable as glove and breeches leather. They herd in flocks, led by a female; live on lichens and on the young shoots and bark of pines, are remarkably fond of salt, and require great caution in hunting. (Simond's Switzerland, vol. i. p. 245.) The common goat is frequently domes. ticated for the sake of its milk, and may be seen near cottages, curiously harnessed (fig. 45.) to prevent its breaking through, or jumping over fences. $42. The Swiss dairy is famous for its Gruyère cheese, so named after a valley, where the best of that kind is made. Its merit depends chiefly on the herb

46

age of the mountain pastures, and partly on the custom of pressing the flowers or bruised seeds of Melilotus officinalis (fig. 46.), with the curd before it is pressed. The mountain pastures are rented at so much per cow's feed from the 15th of May to the 18th of October; and the cows are hired from the peasants at so much for the same period. On the precise day both land and cows return to their owners. It is estimated that 15,000 cows are so grazed, and 30,000 cwt. of cheese made fit for exportation, besides what is reserved for home use.

343. The establishment at Hofwyl, near Berne, may be considered as in great part belonging to agriculture, and deserves to be noticed in this outline. It was invented, and is conducted at the sole expense of M. Fellenberg, a proprietor and agriculturist. His object was to apply a sounder system of education for the great body of the people, in order to stop the progress of error and corruption. Upwards of twelve years ago he undertook to systematize domestic education, and to shew on a large scale how the children of the poor might be best taught, and their labor at the same time most profitably applied; in short, how the first twenty years of a poor man's life might be so employed as to provide both for his support and his education. peasants in his neighborhood were at first rather shy of trusting their children for a new experiment; and being thus obliged to take his pupils where he could find them, many of the earliest were the sons of vagrants, and literally picked up on the highways: this is the case with one or two of the most distinguished pupils.

The

344. Their treatment is nearly that of children under the paternal roof. They go out every morning to their work soon after sun rise, having first breakfasted, and received a lesson of about half an hour: they return at noon. Dinner takes them half an hour, a lesson of one hour follows; then to work again till six in the evening. On Sunday the different lessons take six hours instead of two; and they have butcher meat on that day only. They are divided into three classes, according to age and strength; an entry is made in a book every night of the number of hours each class has worked, specifying the sort of labor done, in order that it may be charged to the proper account, each particular crop having an account opened for it, as well as every new building, the live stock, the machines, the schools themselves, &c. &c. In winter, and whenever there is not out-ofdoors' work, the boys plait straw for chairs, make baskets, saw logs with the cross-saw and

split them, thrash and winnow corn, grind colors, knit stockings, or assist the wheelwright and other artificers, of whom there are many employed in the establishment. For all which different sorts of labor an adequate salary is credited to each boy's class.

345. The boys never see a newspaper, and scarcely a book; they are taught, viva voce, a few matters of fact, and rules of practical application: the rest of their education consists chiefly in inculcating habits of industry, frugality, veracity, docility, and mutual kindness, by means of good example, rather than precepts; and, above all, by the absence of bad example. It has been said of the Bell and Lancaster schools, that the good they do is mostly negative: they take children out of the streets, employ them in a harmless sort of mental sport two or three hours in the day, exercise their understanding gently and pleasantly, and accustom them to order and rule, without compulsion. Now, what these schools undertake to do for a few hours of each week, during one or two years of a boy's life, the School of Industry at Hofwyl, does incessantly, during the whole course of his youth; providing, at the same time, for his whole physical maintenance, at a rate which must be deemed excessively cheap for any but the very lowest of people.

346. The practicability of this scheme for inculcating individual prudence and practical morality, not only in the agricultural, but in all the operative classes of society, M. Simond considers as demonstrated; and it only remains to ascertain the extent of its application. "Two only of the pupils have left Hofwyl, for a place, before the end of their time; and one, with M. de Fellenberg's leave, is become chief manager of the immense estates of Comte Abaffy, in Hungary, and has, it is said, doubled its proceeds by the improved method of husbandry he has introduced. This young man, whose name is Madorly, was originally a beggar boy, and not particularly distinguished at school. Another directs a school established near Zurich, and acquits himself to the entire satisfaction of his employers. M. Fellenberg has besides a number of pupils of the higher classes, some of whom belong to the first families of Germany, Russia, and Switzerland. They live enfamille with their master, and are instructed by the different tutors in the theory and practice of agriculture, and in the arts and sciences on which it is founded. (See Simond's Account of Switzerland, vol. i. Ed. Rev. 1819, No. 64. Des Institutes de Hofwyl de par Cle. L. de V. Paris, 1821.)

SUBSECT. 2. Agriculture of the Duchy of Savoy.

347. Of the agriculture of Savoy, which naturally belongs to Switzerland, a general view, with some interesting details, is given by Bakewell. (Travels in the Tarantaise, &c. 1820-22.) Landed property there is divided into three qualities, and rated for a landtax accordingly. There is an office for registering estates, to which a per centage is paid on each transfer or additional registering. There is also an office for registering all mortgages, with the particulars; both are found of great benefit to the landed interest and the public, by the certainty which they give to titles, and the safety both to borrowers and lenders on land.

348. Land in Savoy is divided into very small farms, and is occupied by the proprietors or paysans, who live in an exceedingly frugal manner, and cultivate the ground with the assistance of their wives and children; for in Savoy, as in many other parts of Europe, the women do nearly as much field labor as the men.

$49. The lands belonging to the monasteries were sold during the French revolution, when Savoy was annexed to France. The gradual abolition of the monasteries had been begun by the old government of Sardinia before the revolution, for the monks were prohibited from receiving any new brethren into their establishments, in order that the estates might devolve to the crown, on the extinction of the different fraternities. This measure, though wise in the abstract, was not unattended with inconvenience, and perhaps we may add, injustice. The poor, who had been accustomed to fly to the monasteries for relief in cases of distress, were left without any support, except the casual charity of their neighbors, who had little to spare from their own absolute necessities. The situation of the poor is therefore much worse in Savoy, than before the abolition of the monasteries. The poor in England suffered in the same manner on the abolition of the monasteries in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, before the poor's rates were enacted. The charity of the monks of Savoy lost much of its usefulness by the indiscriminate manner in which it was generally bestowed: certain days and hours were appointed at each monastery, for the distribution of provisions, and the indolent were thereby enabled to support themselves during the whole week, by walking to the different monasteries on the days of donation. This was offering a premium to idleness, and was the means of encreasing the number of mendicants, which will, in every country, be proportionate to the facility of obtaining food without labor.

350. The peasantry in Savoy are very poor, but they cannot be called miserable. In the neighborhood of towns, their situation is worse than at a distance; and not far from Chamberry, may be seen a few families that might almost vie in squalid misery, rags, and filth, with the poor of Ireland; but the general appearance of the peasantry is respectable. Having learnt the price of labor in various parts of Savoy, Bakewell proposed the following question: Is it possible for a laborer, with a family, to procure a sufficient quantity of wholesome food for their consumption? One of the answers was, Cela est tres-facile, (“It is very easy;") the other was, "The laborer lives very frugally," (tres-sobrement.) " In general he eats very coarse, but wholesome, bread, and, except in the mountains, he eats very little meat, and rarely drinks wine, but he has a great resource in potatoes.

351. One day's labor of a farming man will purchase about twelve pounds avoirdupoise of wheat, or from four to five pounds of beef, veal, or mutton; but these are dainties which he rarely tastes; potatoes, rye-bread, chestnuts, and milk, form the principal part of the food of the poor. The day-laborer in Savoy has to deduct, from the amount of his labor, about seventy days in the year, including saint-days and Sundays, on which he receives no wages,' s." (Bakewell's Travels, vol. i. 314.)

352. There are four modes of occupying land for cultivation in Savoy - by the proprietors; by farmers; by grangers; and by tacheurs.

353. Land very near to towns is generally cultivated by the proprietors, who either keep cattle, or take them in to graze at so much per head.

SA. By farming land, is understood, letting it at a fixed rent, to be paid according to the value of the produce, taken at an average of ten years.

$55. By grangers, or renting land à moitié fruit, is understood, that the proprietor takes half of all the grain and fruit, half the produce or encrease of the cows, half the eggs, and, in short, half of every thing which is productive.

So By tacheurs, is another mode of cultivating land, in the immediate vicinity of towns. The proprietors, to avoid keeping too many servants in their own houses, place a father of a family in the house upon the farm. This man is called le tacheur: he takes care of the cows, for half their produce: he ploughs the ground, receiving for every pair of oxen employed, or for three horses, from seventy to eighty francs per annum: he has half the wine: the share he receives of the wheat and grain is in the proportion of two parts for every nine taken by the proprietor. The latter pays all the taxes, and keeps the accounts: the tacheur may be changed every year: when he is employed in repairing fences, &c. he is paid by the day; this is always undertaken when he enters the farm."

357. The leases granted to the farmers and grangers, are on terms of three, six, or nine years; but when the leases are for six or nine years, a reservation is always made, that at the expiration of every three years the proprietor may revoke the lease, by giving three months' notice, if he be not satisfied with the tenant. The proprietor always supplies the farmer or granger with a sum of money without interest, called chaptal (capital), to aid him in buying oxen; for a farm of two oxen it is generally about twenty louis; for a farm of four oxen, forty louis and so on. The proprietor, for this sum, has an exclusive right to seize the cattle of the farmer, should he sell them clandestinely.

In

358. The mode of pasturage in Chamouny will apply, with little variation, to all the Alpine communes in Savoy. "The rich peasants in the Alps possess meadows, and even habitations at different heights. In winter they live in the bottom of the valley, but they quit it in spring, and ascend gradually, as the heat pushes out vegetation. autumn they descend by the same gradation. Those who are less rich have a resource in the common pastures, to which they send a number of cows, proportionate to their resources, and their means of keeping them during the winter. The poor, who have no meadows to supply fodder for the winter, cannot avail themselves of this advantage. Eight days after the cows have been driven up into the common pasture, all the owners assemble, and the quantity of milk from each cow is weighed. The same operation is repeated one day in the middle of the summer, and at the end of the season, the quantity of cheese and butter is divided, according to the quantity of milk each cow yielded on the days of trial.

359. There are chalets, or public dairies, near the mountain pastures in Savoy, as well as in Switzerland; persons reside in these chalets during the summer months, to make cheese and butter. In many situ ations it is the labor of a day to ascend to these chalets, and return to the valleys immediately below them. There are also public dairies in some of the villages, where the poorer peasants may bring all the milk they can spare, from the daily consumption of their families. The milk is measured, and an account kept of it; and at the end of the season the due portion of cheese is allotted to each, after a small deduction for the expense of making.

3. Of sheep. No large flocks are kept in Savoy, as it is necessary to house them during the winter, at which time they are principally fed with dried leaves of trees, collected during the autumn. Many poor families keep a few sheep to supply them with wool for their domestic use. These little flocks are driven home every evening, and are almost always accompanied by a goat, a cow, a pig, or an ass, and followed by a young girl spinning with a distaff. As they wind down the lower slopes of the mountains, they form the most picturesque groups for the pencil of the painter, and seen at a distance, carry back the imagination to the ages of pastoral simplicity, sung by Theocritus and Virgil.

361. The vineyards in Savoy are cultivated for half the produce of the wine. The cultivator pays the whole expense, except the taxes, which are paid by the proprietor. 362. Walnut-trees, of immense size and great beauty, enrich the scenery of Savoy, and supply sufficient oil for the consumption of the inhabitants, and for the adjoining canton of Geneva. Walnuts have been called the olive of the country. The trees belong principally to the larger proprietors. They are planted by nature, being scattered over the fields, and in the woods and hedge-rows, intermixed with chestnut and forest trees of various kinds. (Bakewell.)

363. The walnut-harvest at Chateau Duing commences in September: "they are beaten off the trees with long poles; the green husks are taken off as soon as they begin to decay; the walnuts are then laid in a chamber to dry, where they remain till November, when the process of making the oil commences. The first operation is to crack the nuts, and take out the kernel: for this purpose several of the neighboring peasants, with their wives and elder children, assembled at the chateau of an evening, after their work was done. The party generally consisted of about thirty persons, who were placed around a long table in the kitchen; one man sat at each end of the table, with a small mallet to crack the nuts by hitting them on the point: as fast as they are cracked, they are distributed to the other persons around the table, who take the kernels out of the shell, and remove the inner part; but they are not peeled. The peasants of Savoy are naturally lively and loquacious; and they enliven their labor with facetious stories, jokes, and noisy mirth. About ten o'clock the table is cleared to make room for the gouté, or supper, consisting of dried fruit, vegetables, and wine; and the remainder of the evening is spent in singing and dancing, which is sometimes continued till midnight. In a favorable season the number of walnuts from the Duing estate is so great, that the party assemble in this manner every evening for a fortnight, before all the walnuts are cracked;

and the poor people look forward to these meetings, from year to year, as a kind of festival. They do not receive any pay; but the gouté and the amusements of the evening are their only reward." (Bakewell.)

364. The walnut kernels are laid on cloths to dry, and in about a fortnight are carried to the crushingmill, where they are ground into a paste; this is put into cloths, and undergoes the operation of pressing to extract the oil. The best oil, which is used for salads and cooking, is pressed cold; but an inferior oil for lamps is extracted by heating the paste. Thirty people in one evening will crack as many walnuts as will produce sixty pounds of paste; this yields about fifteen wine quarts of oil. The walnut-shells are not lost among so frugal a people as the Savoyards, but are burned for the ashes, which are used in washing. Two pounds of these ashes are equal in strength to three of wood-ashes; but the alkali is so caustic, that it frequently injures the linen. The paste, after it is pressed, is dried in cakes, called pain amer; this is eaten by children and poor people, and it is sold in the shops in Savoy and Geneva.

365. The best walnut oil, pressed cold, has but very little of the kernelly taste; but it may be easily distingushed from the best olive oil, which it resembles in color. If the peel were taken off the walnuts, the oil would probably be quite free from any peculiar flavor; but this operation would be too tedious. (Ib.)

366. Tobacco, which is much used in Savoy, was cultivated with success in the neighborhood of Ramilly; but on the restoration of the old despotism, its culture was prohibited, and the implements of manufacture seized.

367. The culture of artificial grasses is spreading in Savoy, but is not yet very general. In the neighborhood of Aix, Ramilly, and Annecy, wheat is succeeded by rye. The rye-harvest being over in June, they immediately sow the land with buck-wheat (Sarrasin), which is cut in September; the following year the land is sown with spring-corn.

368. The grass-lands are always mown twice, and the latter mowing is sufficiently early to allow a good pasturage in the autumn. Water-meadows are occasionally found near towns: the water is generally let down from mountain-streams; but sometimes it is raised from rivers by a sort of bucket-wheel (fig. 47.), which is called the Noria

of the Alps. This wheel is raised or lowered by means of a loaded lever (a), which turns on a fulcrum (b), formed by a piece of wood, with its end inserted in the river's bank. 369. Agricultural improvement in Savoy must be in a very low state, if the answers Bakewell received respecting the average quantity of the produce be correct. One of the answers stated the average encrease of wheat to be from three to five on the quantity sown, and near the towns from five to seven. Another agriculturist stated the average encrease on the best lands to be nine, and in the neighborhood of Annecy thirteen fold. One part of Savoy is, perhaps, the finest corn-land in Europe; and the very heavy crops Bakewell saw in the neighborhood of Aix and Annecy, made him doubt the accuracy of the above statements. But on referring to Arthur Young's account of the agriculture of France before the revolution, it appears that four and a half was regarded as the average encrease in that country, which is very similar in climate to Savoy. (Travels, i. 328.)

370. The salt-works of Moutiers, in the valley of the Isere, in the Tarantaise, are particularly deserving attention, being perhaps the best conducted of any in Europe, with respect to economy. Nearly three million pounds of salt are extracted annually from a source of water which would scarcely be noticed, except for medical purposes, in any other country.

371. The springs that supply the salt-works at Moutiers, rise at the bottom of a nearly perpendicular rock of limestone situated on the south side of a deep valley or gorge. The temperature of the strongest