As we passed a farmhouse surrounded by mulberry trees and vineyards, my companion informed me that the farmer was his partner in worms and wine both, and that the wine promised to be the better speculation this year, for the fruit was in immense abundance.

I saw afterwards that, at the time of vintage, grapes sold for pressing at from 6 to 10 francs the hundred kilos, while 12 and 13 francs was the price in 1863, and that in some districts of the Drome the owners of the presses had not barrels enough for even the first pressing.
The great want of wood on the hills in whose neighbourhood we now found ourselves, attracted attention in the time of Louis XIV., and that sovereign passed severe laws for the protection of the forests that still remained.

As usual, the mere severity of the laws made them fail of their object.

Banishment and the galleys were the punishment for unauthorised cutting of forest trees, and death if fire were used.

There is a paper in the _Journal de Physique_ of 1789,[96] on the disappearance of the forests of Dauphine, pointing out that when the woods are removed from the sides of mountains, the soil soon follows, and the district becomes utterly valueless.