we cross the Garonne at Langon, we find the plains entirely of sand and gravel, and they continue so to Bordeaux.  Where they are capable of any thing, they are in vines, which are in rows, four, five, or six feet apart, and sometimes more.  Near Langon is Sauterne, where the best white wines of Bordeaux are made.  The waste lands are in fern, furze, shrubbery, and dwarf trees.  The farmers live on their farms.  At Agen, Castres, Bordeaux, strawberries and pease are now brought to table; so that the country on the canal of Languedoc seems to have later seasons than that east and west of it.  What can be the cause?  To the eastward, the protection of the Cevennes makes the warm season advance sooner.  Does the neighborhood of the Mediterranean co-operate?  And does that of the ocean mollify and advance the season to the westward?  There are ortolans at Agen, but none at Bordeaux.  The buildings on the canal and the Garonne are mostly of brick, the size of the bricks the same with that of the ancient Roman brick, as seen in the remains of their buildings in this country.  In those of a circus at Bordeaux, considerable portions of which are standing, I measured the bricks, and found them nineteen or twenty inches long, eleven or twelve inches wide, and from one and a half to two inches thick; their texture as fine, compact, and solid as that of porcelain.  The bricks now made, though of the same dimensions, are not so fine.  They are burnt in a kind of furnace, and make excellent work.  The elm tree shows itself at Bordeaux peculiarly proper for being spread flat for arbors.  Many are done in this way on the Quay des Charterons.  Strawberries, pease, and cherries at Bordeaux.

May 24, 25, 26, 27, 28.  Bordeaux.  The cantons in which the most celebrated wines of Bordeaux are made, are Medoc down the river, Grave adjoining the city, and the parishes next above; all on the same side of the river.  In the first, is made red wine principally, in the two last, white.  In Medoc they plant the vines in cross-rows of three and a half pieds.  They keep them so low, that poles extended along the rows one way, horizontally, about fifteen or eighteen inches above the ground, serve to tie the vines to, and leave the cross row open to the plough.  In Grave they set the plants in quincunx, i.e. in equilateral triangles of three and a half pieds every side; and they stick a pole of six or eight feet high to every vine, separately.  The vine-stock is sometimes three or four feet high.  They find these two methods equal in culture, duration, quantity, and quality.  The former, however, admits the alternative of tending by hand or with the plough.  The grafting of the vine, though a critical operation, is practised with success.  When the graft has taken, they bend it into the earth, and let it take root above the scar.  They begin to yield an indifferent wine at three years old, but not a good one till twenty-five years, nor after eighty, when they begin to yield