Danger and delight of innovation...December in the French countryside...

Harrowing a field to prepare for planting seeds, in a 14th-century psalter, or prayer book

| Saturday, December 5, 2020

Dear Friend, 
 
November is over; winter is advancing on the Normandy countryside, shortening the days and wheeling the constellations into clearer view…on a clear night. Morning dawns in pale silver and pink against the black tracery of bare tree branches; evening falls early, with a sky streaked coral and gold against the hills beyond our fields. Brown leaves dance across the Great Lawn, blown by gusts from the windy west, and most days, raindrops rattle against the windowpanes of the Chateau. But today is sunny and bright, and Monsieur Jean-Yves and I are inspecting les culturesthis afternoon. 

“Dame de l’Avent, pluie et vent!” scolded Madame Francine, as I went out the door. Francine, who distrusts the slightest courant d'air, a mere draft, is deeply suspicious of all outings in windy weather. Especially nowadays, “avec la peste qui rôde,” she adds darkly.

The Dame de l’Avent is the Virgin Mary, whose birth is celebrated shortly on December 8 in this season of Advent, usually in the midst of wintry rain and wind. La peste, of course, is le viruswhich has caused le re-confinement, now gradually lifting. Madame Francine is rarely a church-goer, but she is a firm believer in saintly intercession and warnings. 
 
Dame de l’Avent, pluie et vent, 
Enfoncez votre bonnet jusqu’aux dents!” 
 
she went on.  “Our Lady of Advent, wind and rain; Pull your cap down to your teeth.”
 
But I’m already wearing a broad-brimmed hat that sheds water, a stout pair of rubber boots, have wrapped a scarf twice around my neck, and buttoned myself into a warm coat.
 
 “Une chose est sure, c’est une bonne levée,” says Monsieur Jean-Yves, similarly attired, as we stand on the perron outside the Chateau. Enthusiasm is rare among farmers, but for once, nature appears to be our friend. “Rien à voir avec l’an dernier!” Last autumn was dry at first. Then, so cold and wet that the seeds rotted in the ground. We had to replant. The harvest was meager. But this year, we had just enough rain and sun, and “la levée est superbe.”
 
Monsieur Jean-Yves opened the door of his truck, we hopped in. There’s a bit of romance in Jean-Yves’ choice of a vehicle. Le pick-up is rarely seen in France. The white camionnette has been the ubiquitous utility vehicle since Peugeot, Citroën and Renault starting making them in the 1950s. We own one, too. Purchased in 1997, it looks just like every other model made over the last 50 years. Evidence, if more were needed, of the pragmatic conservatism of the average Frenchman.

But the pick-up seems to be about the free-wheeling lifestyle of the American West…at least, as imagined by a prudent French farmer. It hints at hitting the open road, roping dogies, and sleeping under the stars. It suggests adventure, in a cautious way. Even…breaking with tradition. 
 
And Jean-Yves is a something of a risk-taker. I was with him one day, inspecting the cattle, when he tried to help a first-time mother give birth by tugging on the little hooves of the calf that was beginning to emerge. The outraged cow leapt to her feet and chased him until he threw himself to the ground. Baffled, she stopped and looked around, snorting balefully. He crawled out of her way. Then we both ran for our lives out of the pasture. 
 
The adventurous side of Monsieur Jean-Yves actually has long roots in our part of Normandy. This was one of the first regions to experiment with “l’agriculture nouvelle” – the “new agriculture.” That was back in the 18th century. In the 1700s, most peasants in France still used wooden plows, as they had since before Roman times. Instead of crop rotation, which allows a farmer to plant and harvest a crop every year, most relied on the ancient practice of “jachère” or leaving a field to lie fallow every two or three years. Instead of big fields were a multitude of small individually worked strips and open commons, or shared pasture. Little or nothing had changed in the French countryside since medieval times.

Meanwhile in the 1700s, France was experiencing a long period of economic and demographic growth. The last war fought on French soil had ended in 1659, ushering in almost 150 years of peace -- with a resulting decline in death and destruction, disease and famine. Population grew by 40%. More food was needed. And farming methods became a topic of great public interest.

Across La Manche, in the home of "le vieil enemi" – England -- improvements in agriculture were increasing food production exponentially. “Horse-hoeing Husbandry” by Jethro Tull was an 18th-century bestseller. It proposed “A New Method of Culture whereby the Produce of land will be Increased, and the Usual Expense Lessened.” French “esprits curieux” – enquiring minds – traveled across the Channel and took note. One of them was the great French agronome Henri-Louis Duhamel de Monceau. Partly as a result of his travels to England, Duhamel wrote the six-volume “Traité de la culture des terres” in the 1750s. It was the first new treatise on agriculture in French in 150 years, and a great success. We have one in our library at the Chateau.

Jethro Tull's seed drill was quite an improvement for the 18th-century farmer

A movement of French philosopher-statesmen, les Physiocrats, developed an economic theory showing that land and agricultural production were the true basis of wealth. These thinkers had the ear of the king, and Louis XV pronounced edicts to promote the new methods. A tax rebate encouraged farmers to use crop rotation instead of letting fields lie fallow. Another royal edict allowed landowners to fence off les communaux -- the land that had been shared with the surrounding community for grazing flocks of sheep and herds of cattle and swine since time immemorial.

Mostly, these efforts and exhortations were in vain. Innovation is not traditionally seen as a positive quality in France. Even Monsieur Xavier, the esprit curieux behind the maintenance of the Chateau’s behemoth of a heating system, has been heard to protest with indignation, “mais, je ne fais pas d’innovation!” -- “I’m not inventing anything!”

But in Normandy, “l’agriculture à l’anglaise” wasn’t seen as a dangerous fad. Here, during the period from 1750 until the French Revolution, “we turn from the sombre etchings of La Bruyère to the smiling pictures of Watteau,” in the charming words of an English historian. Basse-Normandie, with its fertile plains and abundant grass, threw itself into technical improvements à la Tull and Duhamel.

At Chateau de Courtomer in the 18th century, the widowed Marquise had worked tirelessly to put the estate’s affairs in order. She and her son were intent on improvements – most notable today in the Chateau itself, which was rebuilt in the 1780s – when the French Revolution struck in 1789.

Monsieur Jean-Yves interrupted my reflections with a jolt. “Le jour de l’Immaculée ne passe jamais sans gelée!” he exclaimed, injecting a note of caution in his elegy for this year’s crop of oats. “The day of the Immaculate never passes without a freeze.” The Immaculate One, of course, is the same Lady of Advent whose birthday heralds wind and rain.

Just as in France and at Courtomer the events of 1789 unended all expectations, a cold wind from the north will undo a farmer’s hopes. Perhaps this long experience of the vagaries of weather and politics explains why l'innovation gets a sidelong glance in the French countryside.

With this sobering thought, we drew to a stop next to the Breuil, the parcel where thin green spears of little oat plants stood up stiffly in long furrows. Oats never sell for much money, but we plant them because – as Duhamel recommended so long ago -- we must practice crop rotation. Oats will grow almost anywhere. And they will tolerate many adverse conditions – except for a hard freeze.

We got back in the truck as the afternoon waned into darkness and a chill wind picked up. It was time to give the cattle their evening rations; we would inspect the young wheat and the colza the following day.

A la semaine prochaine...with news from the Chateau,