There are no cottages for labourers, as are seen in England: the chief part of the work on farms in this part of France is done by servants in the house of the farmer, or by married labourers, to whom an acre or two, sometimes as high as 10, according to the quality, is fenced off from the estate for the use of the man and his family; for which he has to give a certain number of days’ work. If such patch of land requires to be ploughed, the farmer does it for him, for an additional number of days’ work. Besides those, there are an immense number of little proprietors, having from an acre and a half to 10 or 15 acres; and they give their labour also to the farmers of larger estates, receiving in return either assistance with oxen, carts, ploughs, &c., or an equivalent in some produce which they do not raise on their own land. Very little money, if any, passes between them. These little properties have sprung up from labourers and others fencing in small patches of commons or waste lands. Nearly all the vineyards in the Loire Inférieure are cultivated by labourers, who have a small spot of ground partitioned off from the main estate: it is for married men only that ground is so divided; the single men live with their families in the villages, or in public-houses, but generally in the latter. In regard to these questions, it must be observed that almost every farmer who hires an estate takes such a one as will just sustain his family, without the aid, or with the assistance only of a man or a man and woman servants, and that therefore very few daily labourers find employment. Few estates run to 200 acres, and if so large, a daily labourer is only hired during harvest, so wretchedly is the husbandry of the country managed. The cottages or houses in villages for labourers are in general the property of the owners of the large estates in the neighbourhood, as well as those that are built on the patches of land for the use of those who are married; some of the latter, however, are built at the joint expense of the farmer and labourer. A cottage or cottages in a detached place from a village, or a house in such a situation, with a little plot of ground for a garden for each apartment, lets for about 20 to 30 francs a year per room, whether the building consists of one or of four rooms. In the villages the rent is a little higher, from 30 to 50, and sometimes as high as 80, if the garden be large to a cottage with only one room. These buildings are so seldom on sale, that the price cannot be stated with accuracy. We now proceed to the GIRONDE. BOURDEAUX. (pp. 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235.) [Sidenote: Population of the Department, 554,225. Population of Bourdeaux, 109,467.]