salt marsh by Mons.
Mourons of this town, occasioned my acquaintance some time ago with that
gentleman. I spent an agreeable and instructive evening at his house.

May 17. Nine hours rolling at anchor had so fatigued my mare, that I
thought it necessary to rest her one day; but this morning I left
Calais. For a few miles the country resembles parts of Norfolk and
Suffolk. The aspect is the same on to Boulogne. Towards that town I was
pleased to find many seats belonging to people who reside there. How
often are false ideas conceived from reading and report. I imagined that
nobody but farmers and labourers in France lived in the country; and the
first ride I take in that kingdom shows me a score of country seats. The
road is excellent.

May 18. Boulogne is not an ugly town, and from the ramparts of the upper
part the view is beautiful. Many persons from England reside here, their
misfortunes in trade or extravagance in living making their sojourn
abroad more agreeable than at home.

The country around improves. It is more inclosed. There are some fine
meadows about Bonbrie, and several chateaux. I am not professedly on
husbandry in this diary, but must just observe, that it is to the full
as bad as the country is good; corn miserable and yellow with weeds, yet
all summer fallowed with lost attention.

May 22. Poverty and poor crops at Amiens. Women are now ploughing with a
pair of horses to sow barley. The difference of the customs of the two
nations is in nothing more striking than in the labours of the sex; in
England it is very little they will do in the fields except to glean and
make hay; the first is a party of pilfering, and the second of pleasure;
in France they plough and fill the dung-cart.

May 25. The environs of Clermont are picturesque. The hills about
Liancourt are pretty and spread with a kind of cultivation I have never
seen before, a mixture of vineyards (for here the vines first appear),
gardens and corn. A piece of wheat, a scrap of lucorne, a patch of
clover or vetches, a bit of vine with cherry and other fruit trees
scattered among all, and the whole cultivated with the spade; it makes a
pretty appearance, but must form a poor system of trifling.

The forest around Chantilly, belonging to the Prince of Conde, is
immense, spreading far and wide. They say the capitainerie, or
paramountship, is above 100 miles in circumference. That is to say, all
the inhabitants for that extent are pestered wit