The silk-worm, though silk is a most valuable _récolte_ of this country, has no connexion with agriculture, except that this worm feeds on the leaves of the mulberry tree. These leaves are plucked as soon as they have attained their full spread, and before they are at all dried or even hardened by the sun. While nature is preparing the food of the silk-worm, art is forcing into existence the worm itself. The eggs are hatched by artificial warmth, and, from the time that the worm can eat till it becomes a cocon, this savoury food is administered. The mulberry is of the white sort; but the _fruit_ is hardly known to the Avignonais; it is of course destroyed by plucking off the leaves. I surprised my friends by telling them I had eaten excellent black mulberries in England, and, as is usual in such cases, they gave no credence to my word. These trees look very miserable without leaves under so fine a sky: by the end of summer a second crop of leaves is plucked off, and given to cattle. It was pleasing to me, as carrying memory back into former ages, to see the threshing-floors of the Avignonais: they are on the outside of the building that serves for the granary: the sheaves are laid in a circle, in the centre of which stands a man who drives two or more horses round, over the ears of corn: another man stands without the circle to correct any irregularities in the work. The moral meaning of the command, not to muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, is evident; and it is to be hoped that, in practice, it was interpreted according to its moral meaning: otherwise the work would not have proceeded very quickly, and would soon have been stopped altogether by the strangulation of the beast. They built, while I was at Avignon, a very good _abattoir_ near one of the gates of the town. I saw here the process of skinning an ox: air is thrown in under the skin by a pair of bellows, which air is then forced forward by beating the inflated hide with clubs. A beast, whose turn it was to be killed next, was standing by with his nose fastened to a ring in the floor. How far did his intelligence enable him to presage the fate that awaited him? French agriculture has made rapid strides within twenty years: they procure and disperse improved machinery: in the breed of their sheep they pay attention to the quality of the fleece. They call the English their masters in the science of agriculture, but entertain confidence, I hope well-founded, of soon equalling those masters. FOOTNOTES: [61] The impetuosity of the south. [62] Your soldiers are brave people, but you whip them. [63] Sometimes--that is too much. [64] Legislator of the human race. [65] Sire, there are great examples _for_, and great authorities _against_. CHAP. XV.