be no doubt that, generally speaking, the soil of France is capable of producing half as much more than it at present yields; they still persevere in the same system as existed in England in the year 1770, when Arthur Young wrote his Agricultural Tour, describing the various practices in the different counties throughout the kingdom.  Two white crops and a summer fallow is the usual course in France, sometimes varied by a crop of clover, and very often they fallow for two years together; they have no idea of leguminous crops as winter provision for their cattle, and of the advantage to be derived from stall feeding they are quite ignorant, except in a few provinces, as a part of Normandy and Brittany.  The same with regard to the drill system; they mostly plough very shallow, and do not keep their land very clean, with a few exceptions; the consequence is their crops are generally very light.  Thanks to the natural richness of their meadows in Normandy, they do certainly produce some beasts of an immense weight for the exhibition annually held on Shrove Tuesday.  There are generally about a dozen brought to Paris, and the finest is the one selected to be led about the streets; the one chosen last year weighed 3,800 French pounds, and as there are two ounces more than in the English pound the immense size of the animal may be imagined.  In the winter, they fatten their beasts with hay, clover and corn, but oilcake is not known except in a few instances, when beasts are fattened for prizes or exhibitions.  Their agricultural implements are in keeping with the rest of their system; I have seen them ploughing even in the lightest land, with the great old heavy turnwrest ploughs and four bulky horses, which might have been effected just as well with a light Rotherham plough and one horse.  Recently, however, I have seen some slight ameliorations, and those parts of France which are nearest England one might expect would improve the soonest.  The farming servants are generally a hard-working, quiet, sober people, contented with very little, their living costing them a mere trifle; in harvest-time an Englishman will pour beer down his throat that will cost as much as would keep a whole French family; there is a natural economy in their habits that tends to making their wages more than equal to their demand.  An Englishman must have the best wheaten bread, and when he gets a pound of meat he is ready to eat it all himself; the Frenchman is contented with a cheap brown bread, quite as wholesome as the finest, and to his portion of meat he adds some vegetables with which soup is made, and it gives comfort to the whole family; and it is quite a mistake to imagine that beer and animal food produce greater physical strength, as I have in several instances proved that the French porter will carry much more than the English.  I remember when lodging in Salisbury Street, in the Strand, having packed up my things for my departure for Paris, when a porter came to carry