We find, as
has been before mentioned, fruit-trees everywhere, corn, fruit, and
vegetables all growing with unimaginable luxuriance. The pastures are
also very fine, but we see no cattle out to graze; the harvest work
requires all hands, and, as there are no fences between field and
meadow, there is no one to tend them. The large heap of manure being
dried up by the sun in the midst of the farm-yard, has a look of
unthriftiness, whilst the small, dark, and ill-ventilated dairies make
us wonder that the manufacture of the famous Brie cheese should be the
profitable thing it is. At one farm we visited, we saw thirty-six
splendid Normandy cows, the entire milk produce of which was used for
cheese-making. Yet nothing could be worse than the dairy arrangements
from a hygienic point of view, and the absolute cleanliness requisite
for dairy work was wanting. These Brie cheeses are made in every farm,
small or great, and large quantities are sent to the Meaux market on
Saturdays, where the sale alone reaches the sum of five or six millions
of francs yearly. The process is a very simple one, and is of course
perpetually going on.
Our hostess, at one of the larger and more prosperous of these farms,
showed us everything, and regaled us abundantly with the fresh milk warm
from the cow.
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