Two Summers in Guyenne: A Chronicle of the Wayside and Waterside. Edward Harrison Barker

the heather and bracken. My companions explained that each commune was surrounded by a considerable extent of moorland that belonged to it, and that any native of the commune had the right of selecting a piece, which became his absolute property after he had cleared it and brought it under cultivation; thus anyone could have what land he wanted in reason for nothing. Quite an Arcadian state of things this, were not the conditions of nature such as to chill the ambition to acquire such freeholds. Three years of back-breaking labour are needed before the land is fit to be put to some profitable purpose. And then what does it yield? Buckwheat, and perhaps potatoes. Although the peasants have the faculty of extending their landed property in the manner described, the consideration of means generally stands in the way. They cannot afford to work and wait three years. Their existence is truly wretched, and if it were not for the luxuriant chestnut-woods, which cover the sides of the narrow valleys or gorges with which the barren plateau is deeply seamed every few miles, the population of the region would be more scanty than it is, for the chestnut goes far to sustain the people through the worst months of the year.