imported every year. It is our cows that pay.'

The principal stock kept is this beautiful Cantal cow, a small, red,
glossy-coated breed, very gentle, and very shy. The enormous quantities
of milk afforded by these dairy farms are sold in part at Aurillac for
home consumption. By far the larger proportion is used in the cheese-
makers' huts, or 'burons,' on the surrounding hills. The pleasant,
mild-flavoured Cantal cheese has hitherto not been an article of
export. It is decidedly inferior to Roquefort, fabricated from ewes'
milk in the Aveyron, and to the Gruyere of the French Jura. As the
quality of the milk is first-rate, a delicious flavour being imparted
by the fragrant herbs that abound here, this inferiority doubtless
arises from want of skill, or, perhaps, want of cleanliness in the
preparation. The numerous schools for dairy-farming that now exist in
France, and the new State-paid teachers of agriculture, will most
likely ere long revolutionize the art of cheese-making throughout the
department. We may then expect to find Cantal cheese at every English
grocer's.

Many more interesting facts I learned, my host chatting leisurely.

'It is usual in these parts,' he said, 'for the eldest son to inherit
an extra fourth part of land, he, in return, being bound to maintain
his parents in old age. A heritage is often thus divided during the
life-time of father and mother, the old folks not caring any longer to
be burdened with the toil of business.'

Much he told me also concerning the rights of 'pacage,' or pasturage on
commons--privileges upheld rather by custom than law. These rights of
pasturing cattle on common-grounds date from the earliest times, and we