A laboring man’s wages here, are one hundred and fifty livres, a woman’s half, and fed.  Two hundred and eighty pounds of wheat sell for forty-two livres.  They make no butter here.  It costs, when brought, fifteen sous the pound.  Oil is ten sous the pound.  Tolerably good olive trees yield, one with another, about twenty pounds of oil.  An olive tree must be twenty years old before it has paid its own expenses.  It lasts for ever.  In 1765, it was so cold, that the Rhone was frozen over at Aries for two months.  In 1767, there was a cold spell of a week, which killed all the olive trees.  From being fine weather, in one hour there was ice hard enough to bear a horse.  It killed people on the road.  The old roots of the olive trees put out again.  Olive grounds sell for twenty-four livres a tree, and lease at twenty-four sous the tree.  The trees are fifteen pieds apart.  But lucerne is a more profitable culture.  An arpent yields one hundred quintals of hay a year, worth three livres the quintal.  It is cut four or five times a year.  It is sowed in the broadcast, and lasts five or six years.  An arpent of ground for corn rents at from thirty to thirty-six livres.  Their leases are for six or nine years.  They plant willow for fire-wood, and for hoops to their casks.  It seldom rains here in summer.  There are some chateaux, many separate farm-houses, good, and ornamented in the small way, so as to show that the tenant’s whole time is not occupied in procuring physical necessaries.

March 25. Orgon.  Pontroyal.  St. Cannat.  From Orgon to Pontroyal, after quitting the plains of the Rhone, the country seems still to be a plain, cut into compartments by chains of mountains of massive rock, running through it in various directions.  From Pontroyal to St. Cannat, the land lies rather in basins.  The soil is very various, gray and clay, gray and stony, red and stony; sometimes good, sometimes middling, often barren.  We find some golden willows.  Towards Pontroyal, the hills begin to be in vines and afterwards in some pasture of greensward and clover.  About Orgon are some enclosures of quick-set, others of conical yews planted close.  Towards St. Cannat, they begin to be of stone.

The high mountains are covered with snow.  Some separate farm-houses of mud.  Near Pontroyal is a canal for watering the country; one branch goes to Terrasson, the other to Arles.

March 25, 26, 27, 28. Aix.  The country is waving, in vines, pasture of greensward and clover, much enclosed with stone, and abounding with sheep.

On approaching Aix, the valley which opens from thence towards the mouth of the Rhone and the sea, is rich and beautiful; a perfect grove of olive trees, mixed among which are corn, lucerne, and vines.  The waste grounds throw out thyme and lavender.  Wheat bread is three sous the pound.  Cow’s milk sixteen sous the quart, sheep’s milk six sous, butter of sheep’s milk twenty sous the pound.