as very few lakes, either in the mountainous districts of the south, or in the great levels of the north and west. It contains, however, a number of maritime inlets, forming inland bays, and communicating with the sea only by a channel of greater or less width. These occur partly on the south-west coast, in Gascony; but more in the south and south-east, in Languedoc and Provence. Their want of depth prevents them from serving as roadsteads for shipping, and they are useful chiefly for fishing, or for the manufacture of bay-salt.
France has much less of artificial or ornamental plantations than England, and much more of natural forest, the total extent of ground covered by wood being computed at seventeen millions of acres, or one-eighth of the territorial surface of the kingdom. Forests are found in almost every department. Lower Normandy contains several of considerable extent. There is a large one at Fontainebleau, only forty-five miles from Paris; and a larger one to the north of the Loire, in the vicinity of Orléans. Those situated in the neighbourhood of the sea, or of navigable rivers, or of great works, such as glass-houses and iron-foundries, have long been subjected to an improvident consumption, which is likely to be increased by the still heavy though reduced duties imposed on foreign coal, and by the undue encouragements given to the smelting of iron by the heavy duties which were in 1814 and in 1822 laid on the importation of foreign iron; so that at present the principal forests are at a distance inland, particularly in the east, in the department of Ardennes, and in the long mountainous tract that forms the boundary of France on the side of Switzerland.
The want of ornamental plantations, and still more the scenery, almost total want of hedges, makes a great deduction from the beauty of scenery in France, and deprives the country of the cheerful aspect so striking in England. The nearest approach to the latter is seen in travelling through the fresh pastures and gentle eminences of Normandy. Of the other provinces, some, like Picardy, Champagne, Poitou, consist of wide uninteresting levels; whilst others, such as Auvergne, part of Upper Languedoc, and the vicinity of the Alps and Pyrenees, contain a bold but bleak scenery. The most beautiful and picturesque views are to be found in the Limousin, or on the borders of the great rivers. The banks of the Loire from Orleans westward are proverbially Statistics, beautiful. The Rhône, bordered by mountains, has generally a bold, and occasionally a wild aspect. The Seine, equally wide, but much more tranquil, flows through a district verdant but less picturesque.
In a country of so great extent and of such diversified surface as France, it is difficult to condense a description of the climate under a few comprehensive heads. The most natural division is into the north, south, and central regions. The north, comprehending Flanders, Picardy, Normandy, Brittany, and in general all that part of France which would be bounded on the south by a diagonal line from Lat. 47. on the west to Lat. 49. on the east frontier, bears a great resemblance, both in temperature and produce, to the south of England, rain occurring frequently, and the country being consequently fit for pasture. There, as with us, the predominant culture is wheat, barley, oats, rye, and such fruit as apples, pears, cherries; also hemp, flax, rapeseed. It is here only in France, that the natural pastures are rich and extensive; here also the species of wood, oak, ash, elm, bear a close resemblance to ours. The central region may be said to comprehend the country to the south of the Loire, or rather of the diagonal line we have mentioned, until reaching a similar line in Lat. 45. on the west and 47. on the east frontier. Here, with the exception of the mountainous parts, the winter is sensibly shorter and milder. Wheat, barley, oats, and rye, are still cultivated, but maize begins to appear, and vines become general. The weather in this great inland tract is much more steady than in the north. In the summer months there is little rain, and storms, when they occur, are frequently accompanied with hail; but, on the whole, the temperature is perhaps the most pleasant in France, being exempt equally from the oppressive heat of the south and the frequent humidity of the north. The third region, comprehending the whole breadth of the French territory from Lat. 45. and 46. to Lat. 43., and in some parts to 42. 30., approaches in climate to the heat of Spain and Italy, rendering it necessary in the summer to suspend all active exertion during the middle of the day, and to reserve it for the morning and evening. A shaded situation is here the desideratum for a dwelling, and a supply of water for agriculture. In this region the heat invariably produces an exuberant crop where irrigation can be applied; hence the frequency of wells, which are generally worked by a wheel and some rude machinery. Wheat is partially cultivated; barley, oats, and rye only on the high grounds; maize is very general, and vines supply not only the main article of export, but the usual drink of the inhabitants. The common fruits are olives and mulberries, and, in a few very warm situations, oranges and lemons. Pasturage is good only on mountainous or irrigated tracts. To palmonic invalids the climate may be advantageous, but in this respect also material distinctions occur from locality, the winter in the south-east of France being at intervals very cold, from the vent de bise, a piercing wind that blows from the Alps and the mountains of Auvergne. Here, notwithstanding the latitude, the cold of winter is intense.
Brittany, projecting into the Atlantic, is as rainy as Ireland or Cornwall. Normandy, with part of Picardy and French Flanders, may be compared to our inland counties. In the interior of France the rains are less frequent, but far more heavy; so that there is much less difference in the quantity of rain that falls in the course of the year than in the number of rainy days. The atmosphere of France is much less cloudy than that of Britain. The most frequent wind in the north of France, as in Great Britain and Ireland, is the south-west; it prevails also, but to a less degree, in the central part of the kingdom. In the south of France the more common winds are from the north.
The difference of temperature between London and Paris is not considerable, nor is the degree of heat found to be intense along the west coast of France, until reaching or rather passing Poitou. In the interior it is much more perceptible, being strongly felt at Lyon, Bordeaux, Toulouse, and still more in the latitude of Nîmes, Aix, Marseilles, and Toulon. On the whole, the variations of climate between the north and south of France are considerably greater than between the north and south of Britain, where the effect of difference of latitude is so much modified by the vicinity of the sea, and where no such variation is known as the very material one indicated by the diagonal line from east to west, the latter being two degrees colder in consequence of the breezes and vapours of the Atlantic.
The harvest begins in the north of France between the 20th and 25th July, in the central part about the middle of that month, in the south about the end of June. September and October are the months of vintage. The great hazard to the corn of the central part of the kingdom arises from violent storms of rain and hail; in the south, from the want of rain in spring. In winter the vent de bise often proves destructive to the olives. The great heats are in July, August, and September; a time of much annoyance in the south of France, from mosquitoes, gnats, flies, and other insects; whilst even scorpions are found in that warm latitude.
To exhibit a classification of the different kinds of soil is a task of difficulty in any extensive country, and in none more so than in France, where a striking difference prevails, not only in contiguous departments, but in adjacent districts of the same department. In Flanders, Picardy, Artois, Normandy, and the Pays de Beauce, a fertile tract to the south of Paris, the soil consists frequently of a loamy mould; in the central and southern parts of the kingdom it is often lighter; whilst the greater part of Brittany, and of the departments along the western coast, have a heathy soil, naturally unproductive, but capable of considerable improvement. But these collective estimates are liable to great deductions; and the attempts made by Arthur Young and other statistical writers to calculate the proportion of the different descriptions of soil, whether loam, heath, chalk, gravel, or the like, are considered by the French as far from successful; even the more systematic effort made by their own government, in the beginning of this century, to compute the value of land by masses de culture, that is, by classing all kindred soils under one head, proved altogether abortive. We shall forbear, therefore, all such vague calculations, and proceed to state the value of annual produce in the different departments, endeavouring to class the latter in lots, according to their position and relative productiveness.
Average annual income of the various departments of France, computed by the English acre, and in sterling money, taking the words "annual income" in the most extensive sense, as including the rent of land, the farmer's profit, and the rent of houses in towns.—(Chapal, De l'Industrie Francaise, vol. i., p. 209.)
The fertility and high state of cultivation of French North and Flanders, and the near approach made to it by part of Nor.-north-east mandy and Picardy, are apparent from the following returns, of France. The chief objects of culture there, as in England, are wheat, oats, barley, and rye; the pasturages are extensive; the horses, cattle, and sheep are numerous.
| Nord (French Flanders) | Somme | Pas de Calais | Manche | Calvados | |-----------------------|-------|--------------|--------|---------| | 15s. 6d. | | | | |
The inland province, called formerly, from the rivers along its circumference, the Isle of France, comes next in the list of relative productiveness. The objects of culture are similar to those of Flanders and Normandy, viz., wheat, Statistics, oats, and barley; but the pasturages are less rich and extensive.
Seine et Oise ..............17s. 3d. Oise ..................13s. 6d. Seine et Marne ..........13s. 7d.
The district around Paris forms the centre of the above departments. There the average return is stated at 72s. 9d. per acre; but as this includes house-rent, and is altogether a peculiar case, we proceed to the next great division of open country.¹
Alsace, though in some parts mountainous, is in others level and fertile, particularly adapted to pasture and the culture of wheat.
Bas Rhin ..................14s. 3d. Haut Rhin .............12s. 6d.
Brittany has in several parts good pasturage, and a soil adapted to the culture of wheat. Many other parts, however, consist of unproductive heaths. The general backwardness and poverty of the province are but too strikingly exemplified by the following return:
Ille et Vilaine ..........8s. 10d. Morbihan .............6s. 8d. Loire Inferieure .......8s. 6d. Finistere ...............6s. 8d.