I was induced, in the course of my journey through the south of France, to pay very particular attention to the objects of their culture, because the resemblance of their climate to that of the southern parts of the United States authorizes us to presume we may adopt any of their articles of culture, which we would wish for.  We should not wish for their wines, though they are good and abundant.  The culture of the vine is not desirable in lands capable of producing any thing else.  It is a species of gambling, and of desperate gambling too, wherein, whether you make much or nothing, you are equally ruined.  The middling crop alone is the saving point, and that the seasons seldom hit.  Accordingly, we see much wretchedness among this class of cultivators.  Wine, too, is so cheap in these countries, that a laborer with us, employed in the culture of any other article, may exchange it for wine, more and better than he could raise himself.  It is a resource for a country, the whole of whose good soil is otherwise employed, and which still has some barren spots, and a surplus of population to employ on them.  There the vine is good, because it is something in the place of nothing.  It may become a resource to us at a still earlier period:  when the increase of population shall increase our productions beyond the demand for them, both at home and abroad.  Instead of going on to make an useless surplus of them, we may employ our supernumerary hands on the vine.  But that period is not yet arrived.

The almond tree is also so precarious, that none can depend for subsistence on its produce, but persons of capital.

The caper, though a more tender plant, is more certain in its produce, because a mound of earth of the size of a cucumber hill, thrown over the plant in the fall, protects it effectually against the cold of winter.  When the danger of frost is over in the spring, they uncover it, and begin its culture.  There is a great deal of this in the neighborhood of Toulon.  The plants are set about eight feet apart, and yield, one year with another, about two pounds of caper each, worth on the spot six pence sterling the pound.  They require little culture, and this may be performed either with the plough or hoe.  The principal work is the gathering of the fruit as it forms.  Every plant must be picked every other day, from the last of June till the middle of October.  But this is the work of women and children.  This plant does well in any kind of soil which is dry, or even in walls where there is no soil, and it lasts the life of a man.  Toulon would be the proper port to apply for them.  I must observe, that the preceding details cannot be relied on with the fullest certainty, because, in the canton where this plant is cultivated, the inhabitants speak no written language, but a medley, which I could understand but very imperfectly.