--As to the character of the landscape, I must
add, that though it makes a bad picture, there are great appearances of
care in the agriculture, and of comfort in the population. The country,
too, is sufficiently well wooded; and apple and pear trees every where
take the place of the pollard oaks and elms of our hedge-rows.
Norman cider is famous throughout France: it is principally, however,
the western part of the province that produces it. Throughout the whole
of that district, the lower classes of the inhabitants scarcely use any
other beverage. Vines, as I have already had occasion to mention, were
certainly cultivated, in early times, farther to the north than they are
at present. The same proofs exist of vineyards in the vicinity of Caen
and Lisieux, as at Jumieges. Indeed, towards the close of the last
century, there was still a vineyard at Argence, only four miles
south-east of Caen; and a kind of white wine was made there, which was
known by the name of _Vin Huet_. But the liquor was meagre; and I
understand that the vineyard is destroyed.--Upon the subject of the
early use of beer in Normandy, tradition is somewhat indistinct. The
ancient name of one of the streets in Caen, _rue de la Cervoisiere_,
distinctly proves the habit of beer-drinking; and, when Tacitus speaks
of the beverage of the Germans, in his time, as "humor ex hordeo vel
frumento in quandam similitudinem vini corruptus," it seems highly
improbable but that the same liquor should have been in use among the
cognate tribes of Gaul.
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