At Plougastel one hardly believes that he is in Brittany. Melons used to be grown at that spot, long since, in the open fields, with glass frames to protect them from the spring frost, and green peas were grown under the protection of rows of furze which sheltered them from the northern winds. Now, whole fields are covered with strawberries, roses, violets, cherries and plums, down to the very sea beach.[102] Even the landes are reclaimed, and we are told that in five years or so there will be no more landes in that district (p. 265). Nay, the marshes of the Dol—“The Holland of Brittany”—protected from the sea by a wall (5,050 acres), have been turned into market-gardens, covered with cauliflowers, onions, radishes, haricot beans and so on, the acre of that land being rented at from £2, 10s. to £4.
The neighbourhoods of Nantes could also be mentioned. Green peas are cultivated there on a very large scale. During the months of May and June quite an army of working people, especially women and children, are picking them. The roads leading to the great preserving factories are covered at certain hours with rows of carts, upon which the peas and onions are carted one way, while another row of carts are carrying the empty pods which are used for manure. For two months the children are missing in the schools; and in the peasant families of the neighbourhood, when the question comes about some expenditure to be made, the usual saying is, “Wait till the season of the green peas has come.”
About Paris no less than 50,000 acres are given to the field culture of vegetables and 25,000 acres to the forced culture of the same. Sixty years ago the yearly rent paid by market-gardeners attained already as much as £18 and £24 per acre, and yet it has been increased since, as well as the gross receipts, which were valued by Courtois Gérard at £240 per acre for the larger market-gardeners, and twice as much for the smaller ones in which early vegetables are grown in frames.
The fruit culture in the neighbourhoods of Paris is equally wonderful. At Montreuil, for instance, 750 acres, belonging to 400 gardeners, are literally covered with stone walls, specially erected for growing fruit, and having an aggregate length of 400 miles. Upon these walls, peach trees, pear trees and vines are spread, and every year something like 12,000,000 peaches are gathered, as well as a considerable amount of the finest pears and grapes. The acre in such conditions brings in £56. This is how a “warmer climate” was made, at a time when the greenhouse was still a costly luxury. All taken, 1,250 acres are given to peaches (25,000,000 peaches every year) in the close neighbourhood of Paris. Acres and acres are also covered with pear trees which yield three to five tons of fruit per acre, such crop being sold at from £50 to £60. Nay, at Angers, on the Loire, where pears are eight days in advance of the suburbs of Paris, Baltet knows an orchard of five acres, covered with pears (pyramid trees), which brings in £400 every year; and at a distance of thirty-three miles from Paris one pear plantation brings in £24 per acre—the cost of package, transport and selling being deducted. Likewise, the plantations of plums, of which 80,000 cwts. are consumed every year at Paris alone, give an annual money income of from £29 to £48 per acre every year; and yet, pears, plums and cherries are sold at Paris, fresh and juicy, at such a price that the poor, too, can eat fresh home-grown fruit.
In the province of Anjou one may see how a heavy clay, improved with sand taken from the Loire and with manure, has been turned, in the neighbourhoods of Angers, and especially at Saint Laud, into a soil which is rented at from £2, 10s. to £5 the acre, and upon that soil fruit is grown which a few years ago was exported to America.[103] At Bennecour, a quite small village of 850 inhabitants, near Paris, one sees what man can make out of the most unproductive soil. Quite recently the steep slopes of its hills were only mergers from which stone was extracted for the pavements of Paris. Now these slopes are entirely covered with apricot and cherry trees, black-currant shrubs, and plantations of asparagus, green peas and the like. In 1881, £5,600 worth of apricots alone was sold out of this village, and it must be borne in mind that competition is so acute in the neighbourhoods of Paris that a delay of twenty-four hours in the sending of apricots to the market will often mean a loss of 8s.—one-seventh of the sale price on each hundred-weight.[104]
At Perpignan, green artichokes—a favourite vegetable in France—are grown, from October till June, on an area covering 2,500 acres, and the net revenue is estimated at £32 per acre. In Central France, artichokes are even cultivated in the open fields, and nevertheless the crops are valued (by Baltet) at from £48 to £100 per acre. In the Loiret, 1,500 gardeners, who occasionally employ 5,000 workmen, obtain from £400,000 to £480,000 worth of vegetables, and their yearly expenditure for manure is £60,000. This figure alone is the best answer to those who are fond of talking about the extraordinary fertility of the soil, each time they are told of some success in agriculture. At Lyons, a population of 430,000 inhabitants is entirely supplied with vegetables by the local gardeners. The same is in Amiens, which is another big industrial city. The districts surrounding Orléans form another great centre for market-gardening, and it is especially worthy of notice that the shrubberies of Orléans supply even America with large quantities of young trees.[105]
It would take, however, a volume to describe the chief centres of market-gardening and fruit-growing in France; and I will mention only one region more, where vegetables and fruit-growing go hand in hand. It lies on the banks of the Rhône, about Vienne, where we find a narrow strip of land, partly composed of granite rocks, which has now become a garden of an incredible richness. The origin of that wealth, we are told by Ardouin Dumazet, dates from some thirty years ago, when the vineyards, ravaged by phylloxera, had to be destroyed and some new culture had to be found. The village of Ampuis became then renowned for its apricots. At the present time, for a full 100 miles along the Rhône, and in the lateral valleys of the Ardèche and the Drôme, the country is an admirable orchard, from which millions’ worth of fruit is exported, and the land attains the selling price of from £325 to £400 the acre. Small plots of land are continually reclaimed for culture upon every crag. On both sides of the roads one sees the plantations of apricot and cherry trees, while between the rows of trees early beans and peas, strawberries, and all sorts of early vegetables are grown. In the spring the fine perfume of the apricot trees in bloom floats over the whole valley. Strawberries, cherries, apricots, peaches and grapes follow each other in rapid succession, and at the same time cartloads of French beans, salads, cabbages, leeks, and potatoes are sent towards the industrial cities of the region. It would be impossible to estimate the quantity and value of all that is grown in that region. Suffice it to say that a tiny commune, Saint Désirat, exported during Ardouin Dumazet’s visit about 2,000 cwts. of cherries every day.[106]
The results of this development are simply striking. Thus it appears, from an inquest made in 1906 by the French professors of agriculture, that the yearly export of fresh flowers from the département of the Alpes Maritimes attains as much as £400,000, and that of the flowers used for perfumes gives from £280,000 to £320,000 in addition to the just mentioned sum.[107] From the département of the Var, 3,475 tons of flowers, valued from £160,000 to £200,000, were exported in 1902.