another, about twenty pounds of oil. An olive tree must be
twenty years old before it has paid its own expenses. It lasts for ever.
In 1765, it was so cold, that the Rhone was frozen over at Aries for two
months. In 1767, there was a cold spell of a week, which killed all the
olive trees. From being fine weather, in one hour there was ice hard
enough to bear a horse. It killed people on the road. The old roots of
the olive trees put out again. Olive grounds sell for twenty-four livres
a tree, and lease at twenty-four sous the tree. The trees are fifteen
pieds apart. But lucerne is a more profitable culture. An arpent yields
one hundred quintals of hay a year, worth three livres the quintal.
It is cut four or five times a year. It is sowed in the broadcast, and
lasts five or six years. An arpent of ground for corn rents at from
thirty to thirty-six livres. Their leases are for six or nine years.
They plant willow for fire-wood, and for hoops to their casks. It
seldom rains here in summer. There are some chateaux, many separate
farm-houses, good, and ornamented in the small way, so as to show
that the tenant's whole time is not occupied in procuring physical
necessaries.

March 25. _Orgon. Pontroyal. St. Cannat_. From Orgon to Pontroyal, after
quitting the plains of the Rhone, the country seems still to be a plain,
cut into compartments by chains of mountains of massive rock, running
through it in various directions. From Pontroyal to St. Cannat, the land
lies rather in basins. The soil is very various, gray and clay, gray and
stony, red and stony; sometimes good, sometimes middling, often barren.
We find some golden willows. Towards Pontroyal, the hills begin to be
in vines and afterwards in some pasture of greensward and clover. About
Orgon are some enclosures of quick-set, others of conical yews planted
close. Towards St. Cannat, they begin to be of stone.

The high mountains are covered with snow. Some separate farm-houses of
mud. Near Pontroyal is a canal for watering the country; one branch goes
to Terrasson, the other to Arles.

March 25, 26, 27, 28. _Aix_. The country is waving, in vines, pasture
of greensward and clover, much enclosed with stone, and abounding with
sheep.

On approaching Aix, the valley which opens from thence towards the mouth
of the Rhone and the sea, is rich and beautiful; a perfect grove of
olive trees, mixed among which are corn, lucerne, and vines. The waste
grounds throw out thyme and