Some twenty years ago this little town of Ballan was a place of great prosperity. Every sunny slope all round was planted with the vine. The grapes of the country, besides filling the local vats, command a good price at Saumur, a neighbouring town wherein is manufactured much so-called champagne, which divine beverage, outside its natural borders, is best made from the light heady wines of these parts. Without any disguise or taking of names in vain, the _Coteaux_ of the Loire produce many a famous vintage, such as the golden effervescing Vouvray, and the excellent claret of Chinon and Joué. But, alas! since 1890, too often the prosperous vineyard has become a wilderness, or is planted at best with garden-stuff or corn. The peasant-farmers no longer make a fortune each September; they barely grow for their own use some acre or so of vines. Ballan still keeps its air of solid comfort, its handsome cottages of white stone roofed with slate, its teeming vat in every cellar, its orchards laden with fruit. But, alas! money is no longer so flush in every pocket, for no crop replaces the prosperity given by the grape. You know a wine-growing village when you enter it by an air of universal well-being; and also by the industrious habits of the dwellers therein; for the vine demands unremitting care and attention, especially during the months of January, April, June, September, and October. Suppose a farmer to grow, beside his vineyard, a field or two of corn, an acre or so of hay and some potatoes and turnips (and what farmer can grow less?). You will see, if you count the times of sowing and reaping, that he can have but little time to play the John-o’-Dreams. III Close to the kitchen gardens of the Commanderie lies the farmyard, a picturesque and pleasant place where I love to loiter of an afternoon. In the middle stands a squat round tower of considerable girth. Whatever it was of old (gateway, tower, or colombarium), to-day it is a dairy, chosen for this office on account of the mighty thickness of its walls and consequent evenness of the temperature within. The vaulted roof of the ground floor is lined, like the walls, with bright enamelled tiles, blue and green; the flags are laid with such evenness that not a speck of dust can shelter there in any cranny; tables of lava support the spotless vessels for the milk; the churns and separators are as neat and dainty as if they stood there not for use, but for ornament. How different from the rough and (truth to tell) the grimy floors, the squalid deal bench, the primitive churns and cheese-wrings of our wind-beaten mountain _burons_ in Auvergne!