oned by the spade and the plow, a vast portion of the soil
ceases to feed man, while the rest, poorly cultivated, scarcely provides
the simplest necessities[5128].

In the first place, on the failure of a crop, this portion remains
untilled; its occupant is too poor to purchase seed; the intendant is
often obliged to distribute seed, without which the disaster of the
current year would be followed by sterility the following year[5129].
Every calamity, accordingly, in these days affects the future as well as
the present; during the two years of 1784 and 1785, around Toulouse,
the drought having caused the loss of all draft animals, many of the
cultivators are obliged to let their fields lie fallow. In the second
place, cultivation, when it does take place, is carried on according to
medieval modes. Arthur Young, in 1789, considers that French agriculture
has not progressed beyond that of the tenth century[5130]. Except in
Flanders and on the plains of Alsace, the fields lie fallow one year out
of three, and oftentimes one year out of two. The implements are poor;
there are no plows made of iron; in many places the plow of Virgil's
time is still in use. Cart-axles and wheel-tires are made of wood, while
a harrow often consists of the trestle of a cart. There are few animals
and but little manure; the capital bestowed on cultivation is three
times less than that of the present day. The yield is slight: "our
ordinary farms," says a good observer, "taking one with another return
about six times the seed sown."[5131] In 1778, on the rich soil around
Toulouse, wheat returns about five for one, while at the present day it
yields eight to one and more. Arthur Young estimates that, in his day,
the English acre produces twenty-eight bushels of grain, and the French
acre eighteen bushels, and that the value of the total product of the
same area for a given length of time is thirty-six pounds sterling
in England and only twenty-five in France. As the parish roads are
frightful, and transportation often impracticable, it is clear that,
in remote cantons, where poor soil yields scarcely three times the seed
sown, food is not always obtainable. How do they manage to live until
the next crop? This is the question always under consideration previous
to, and during, the Revolution. I find, in manuscript correspondence,
the syndics and mayors of villages estimating the quantities for local
subsistence at so many bushels in the granaries, so