Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/686

668 François de Carles, my grandfather. Returning from a campaign in Italy, where he had seen how much the culture of the mulberry enriched the population, he resolved to transplant this industry into the heart of Cévennes, where were his estates. He proceeded in this way: He made plantations, and, in order to extend them, he did not hesitate to uproot the chestnuts, those old nourishers of the ancient Cévennols.



To water the mulberries, he constructed ditches and aqueducts; then he forced, so to say, the peasants to take these improved lands at their own price and on their own conditions. In this way he alienated, almost all his land, and singularly diminished his fortune; but he enriched the country. The results speak too distinctly to be misunderstood. You shall judge by the figures.