Of this great plain between the sea and the mountains no such question could be asked. Some corn is raised, and some vegetables, such as artichokes, but most of it is devoted to the culture of the vine. It is all in the highest state of cultivation, and not an inch is wasted. The vines are planted in open fields, with the precision of the hops of Kent. Now is the time of pruning, and they are all being cut back to within a foot or so of the ground. To an eye accustomed to the hill-side and rocky vineyards of the Rhine, of Italy, or of Madeira, to the vines which in Southern Europe throw themselves in reckless abandon over trellises and wayside trees, these flat fields, which suggest turnips or beet, have a very unromantic appearance. But it is easy to see that the cultivation is conducted on the most scientific and business-like lines. It was our privilege to be invited to visit a French gentleman and his family at their residence about twenty miles from Algiers. Our host has purchased a large tract of land, the whole of which he has turned into a great vineyard. He has built a pleasant country house, and filled it with treasures of Arab art, and the trophies of travel in other lands. He has planted a garden of palms and sub-tropical shrubs—a garden not kept up to the standard of English trimness, but rich in shade, and pleasantly suggestive of a jungle. Not only are his vines planted and pruned with mathematical precision, but all his machinery for the extraction and treatment of the grape juice is of the latest and most practical character. A long building lined with huge vats gives an idea of the greatness of his undertaking, and is designed to enable him to hold the produce of two vintages in the event of a bad market:—a very important advantage to a producer. There is nothing of the model, or pleasure, farm about the place; it is all intensely practical. “It is an industry,” said our host; and indeed it is; a fine example of industrial intelligence applied to agriculture. The presence on the farm of two motor-cars and an aeroplane is evidence that he is otherwise abreast of the movement.