Agro-pastoral System in the Moors of Gascogne

Before the systematic timbering of the waste lands of the Moors of Gascogne in the middle of the 19th century, the economy of the area rests on the system agro-pastoral , making it possible to draw part of the moor, vast extended of a sandy ground of an extreme poverty. The omnipresent breedings of sheep are used not for the production of meat or milk, but with the fertilization of the grounds, from which Landais of the time cultivate some cereals, primarily Seigle and millet, raw material of the manufacture of the bread, basic commodity of their thin food. It is of this time that the image comes from Épinal of the wader landais supervising its herd. During the XIXe century, the purpose of many experiments were to find alternatives to agro-pastoralisme and to diversify the cultures. But it was without taking account of the sterility of the grounds, and these questionings of the traditional system were all of the crashing to pieces failures.

The need for fixing the dunes and for cleansing the plains will be right finally of the agroone, and it is finally the pine which will drive out the pastors landais and their herds at the end of the XIXe century

Agro-pastoral system landais

The Moors of Gascogne are a homogeneous area on the historical and cultural, but so geological level. The poverty of the grounds, the desert and marshy landscapes, geographical insulation, the language and the habits of the inhabitants often caused a reaction of rejection and contempt on behalf of the " estrangeys" (those which are not moor), comparing Landais with savages.

In order to be able to exploit the waste lands and desert of the moor, the local economy of the time rests on a method of fertilization of the grounds by a traditional agricultural system mixing cultures and breeding. The sheep and ewes nourish low grasses, while the shepherds supervise the herd top of their stilts. This means of transport is particularly adapted to topography, making it possible to supervise the herd on long distances, but also to quickly move while avoiding the punctures of Ajonc S and the moisture of the ground. The role of the herd is above all to produce of the manure in order to fertilize the ground. Indeed the natural outputs are too weak to allow some culture that is to provide an acceptable harvest to nourish the hearth, made up of ten people.

The millet and rye cultures thus make it possible to produce the flour necessary to the manufacture of the Pain, constituting the base of the food. The diagram below summarizes simply the operation of the agro-pastoral system:

In this way, the poor grounds are emphasized in an intensive way, which allows a culture without Jachère. To the properly food cultures, come to be added some other productions directed towards the Autoconsommation. It is for example the case of the Chanvre. This culture starts to regress as of the middle of the XIXe century. It allows up to that point, after spinning and weaving, the clothes industry of textiles characteristic of the area. Landais of the time also cultivate the vine in a located way, practice the Apiculture, have some pigs and sometimes cows for milk and the meat. The products obtained are used primarily for consumption of the family but are sometimes intended for the sale.

The maintenance of the close-cropped moor is essential to make it possible the herds to nourish itself. Each year in spring, the shepherds put fire on great extents to clear of undergrowth and regenerate the vegetation. This operation is called " burle" in Gascon.

Wheels of a system

The airial

The habitat in district is inseparable from a particular form of fitting-out: the Airial. The exploitation and apartment buildings spread on a lawn (due to the presence and the fertilization of the animals) planted leafy trees (oaks, chestnuts, fruit trees…) and opened with the circulation of the men and the animals. Formerly small island of timbering in the stripped moor, the airial is today a clearing enclosed in vast the Forêt of the Moors.

The site of the airial is done with the variation of the wet moor and close to a draining river. In this area, the rivers are above all the natural axes of drainage of the plate landais. Because of the obstruction of water, all the inhabited places of this country (districts and boroughs) are located on the edges of the plate, in balance of the rivers, where precisely the ground is best drained.

Paradoxically, the man settled here near the rivers, not to supply itself out of water as in good of other areas, but on the contrary for better getting rid some.

The moor

The field of the herds, it is the close-cropped Lande. Today disappeared, it yielded the place to the forest. Until the middle of the XIXe century, it occupies approximately the three quarters of the territory of the Moors of Gascogne.

Its vegetable composition varies according to the more or less good drainage of the fraud: in the dry moor dominate Bruyère S (in particular the Callune), Hélianthème S, canche S and Lichen S; in the wet moor the Molinie reigns; between the two, the moor Mésophile supports the heather with brush, the Fougère eagle and the Ajonc of Europe.

Exclusive food of the herds, these plants also make it possible to carry out the Soutrage. Brought back in the sheep-folds, this one will constitute the litter of the herds and the raw material of the manure so much required. Spontaneous vegetation, the moor remains however narrowly controlled by the man. At the end of the winter, the inhabitants of the districts practice regularly the incineration (the burle ), in order to remove the ground from the too old plants and too woody for the tooth of the animals, thus supporting pushes back it and a light fertilization thanks to ashes.

This ungrateful medium hardly tolerates but one animal per hectare. These vastnesses devoted to the free course of the herds take all their direction then. Thus the communal statute of the major part of these moors is explained. They are generally 50% to 60% of the territory of each commune which are in “vancant”. Vast reservoirs of collective resources, those offer to each one, by interposed herd, the share necessary to the operation of its farm.

It is the moor, and it only, more by its vastness available that by its food values, which must ensure the subsistence of the herds. Also, the pasturage must it be carried out in long courses, so that the animals can find their food daily. The shepherd modifies his displacements according to the cycle of the vegetation and the rate/rhythm of the seasons.

In summer, the herd leaves very far on the wet moor which occupies the great extents interfluviales, carrying out up to twenty kilometers per day. Each night, it is garaged in one of the many sheep-folds of courses which mark out the moor. In this manner, one loses nothing the invaluable manure until one waits of the herds.

In winter, the animals are maintained near the districts, in zone of dry moor. During the period of lambing, between Christmas and Easter, the mothers ( agnereyres ) and their lambs are entrusted to the shepherd in title ( aouilhé ), experienced man. The young people and not-mothers ( bassioues ) are entrusted to an initial shepherd. The two parts are joined together at the beautiful season.

The field

The field, constitutes a true agrarian architecture. This agriculture had to deal with two handicaps: stagnation of winter water and mediocrity of the grounds. The insufficiency of the slope of the plate landais and the presence with a low depth of a compact and impermeable layer of ferruginous sandstone (Alios) returned the essential drainage.

The remedy to overcome the poverty of the acid grounds is the Fumier, only amendment available and consistent, gotten by the herds. Thus, the Intensive agriculture begins here with the extensive breeding of the sheep, by respecting balances being reproduced on the diagram above.

To nourish the men, traditional agriculture ingeniously had to diversify. The rye, adapted well to the poor quality of the ground and the climatic conditions, is the principal cereal which will give the bread, pillar of the food. Other cereals are cultivated in complement: the millet, which is used to manufacture the Cruchade (abundantly consumed pulp), the Panis (of which the tiny grains are reserved for the young poultries), the buckwheat (also consumed in the form of pulp). The corn not arriving in this area that at the end of the XVIIIe century little by little the millet for the preparation of the cruchade will supplant.

Realized on small surfaces, with three to five hectares by exploitation, this food Agriculture associates two cereals on the same piece. In autumn, after the spreading of the manure, rye is sown with stolen then raised in Billon S. In spring, one second cereal (millet, panic grass or corn) comes to be intercalated in the furrows between the rye rows. Being unaware of the Fallow in addition, the ground carries its harvests in an uninterrupted way. After the harvest of the millet, panic grass or corn, at the beginning of autumn, a new annual cycle starts.

Such an agriculture, very gardened, is large consumer of labor: once the emblavé rye field in parallel rows, almost all the operations must be carried out with the hand.

Ewes

In 1850, the livestock counts approximately a million heads on the whole of the Moors of Gascogne. Frugal, the ewe landaise adapted perfectly to the so particular vegetable medium and if not very generous the moor. High on legs and longiligne, it appears excellent walker and of a rusticity to any test. Subjected to these hard conditions of breeding, it gives only little meat, even less milk and only two lambs in its life (the first at three years, the second at seven years, age of the “reform”).

In spite of these characters, it is difficult to speak about local race. Indeed, the exchanges were numerous with the Pyrenean herds. Those regularly crossed the area at the end of the summer to gain the pastures of Gironde then at the beginning of spring to join the pastures of mountain pasture. In certain fairs as with Luxey, one supplied oneself as parents come from the Béarn or the Basque Country “to renew blood”. But if the transhumance of the Pyrenean herds were done towards the Moors, the local herds, them, never crossed the distances horizons of the “Large Desert”.

The products resulting from the herd are varied. The animals are stripped of their fleece before the hot seasons. The wool, partly treated by the peasants, can also be marketed and get some monetary incomes. It is even, with honey and wax, one of the rare products marketed at that time. The meat of the young male lambs or the ewes of “reform” is only consumed, the ewe-lambs are systematically kept for the renewal of the herd. The milk, produced in small quantity, is never tapped. It is completely left to the mothers to nourish their lambs.

The principal product is the manure, intended to fertilize the poor and acid ground fields. That from twenty to thirty animals is necessary to amend suitably only one hectare. The economy of the old company landaise rests on a agro-pastoral system where the breeding is with the service of agriculture. The culture of the fields thus finds its source in the thin richnesses of the moor.

Oxen

Bread

The bread is the base of the food in the traditional company. Once the ground grain, each peasant has his Mouture which it must treat and refine so as to obtain the flour suitable for making bread. The separation of the its and the flour is carried out either using a simple sieve with hand, the Crible, or thanks to a more elaborate machine, genuine grinding stone provided with a drum interior and actuated by a crank, the Blutoir.

With this flour, the housewife (the daune ) manufactures the Bread dough in a domestic Pétrin ( meyt ). This paste, worked in balls from three to five kilograms on average, is cooked in the baker's oven close to the house. Cooking takes place every two weeks for the bread of the household.

The manufacture of the bread is the result of a long chain of operations:

one needs one kilogram of rye bread per day to nourish an adult, that is to say 4.000 kilograms per annum for a family of ten people
to manufacture these 4.000 kg of bread, one needs 3.200 kg of flour
to obtain these 3.200 kg of flour, one needs 4.000 kg of rye grains
to produce these 4.000 kg of rye grains, one needs 4 hectares of field
to fertilize these 4 ha of field, one needs 60 tons of manure
to obtain these 60t of manure, one needs 100 ewes
to nourish these 100 ewes, one needs 100 ha of moor

Economic actors

The shepherd

The plowman

To be a plowman in the traditional company, it is also to be owner of a ground and a complete exploitation, statute which the administrative acts indicate by “owner-plowman”. It is the Master of the places.

Much more than one worker of the fields, he is the peasant with the direction full with the term. With the difference of the seminomad shepherd, the plowman incarnates the sedentary par excellence. Character pivot and dominating of the districts, he is the main actor of the old agro-pastoral economy.

Fixed at the ground by his work, subjected to the rate/rhythm of the seasons, the plowman is related to a soil of which it ensures continuity. This continuity is expressed in the concept of tinèou . This term includes the family and her inheritance. It is here about an extended family, joining together to twenty people under the same roof: very often an old couple, several wire or girls married, their children and small children and, if necessary, servants, men or women. But the number of mouths to be nourished must correspond to the number of arms to work and the capacities of the exploitation.

The chief of the tinèou ( lou Mestre ) is the oldest man or his oldest son. He organizes the household, distributes work, manages the exploitation. It is him which represents the family with-outside.

In this company, the heritage is levelling, without reference to sex nor of row of seniority, contrary to Gascogne Southerner and the Pyrenean companies. It privileges the Indivision as much as possible.

Within the tinèou, the allocation of the functions takes place according to the sex and of the age. The men in the force of the age carry out large agricultural work: to the household head is allocated the function, developed between all, of herdsman. The guard of the animals is entrusted to oldest or too young people.

To the young women, girls or daughters-in-law, is allocated the work of the gardens (that of the field, the airial or the edge of brook), which will provide vegetables of season for daily soup. They also take care of the farmyard (turkeys, hens and ducks) and of the pig, which will give the main part of the meats. They also ensure the agricultural work which requires a neat labor: weeding, weeding and harvest.

It is with the daune , correspondent female of the Mestre , that return the domestic tasks, the education of the children and often the cords of the purse. But especially, it is the daune which manufactures the bread necessary for the household.

To the plowman the culture of the fields and above all a cereal falls which rate/rhythm the agricultural calendar: rye. It than whoever, is thus, more subjected to the whims of time. Also it will benefit from many festivals to reconcile the favors of the Sky and the indulgence of nature: in Christmas, Easter, at the time of the rogations or with the Jean saint.

The miller

The miller is a man with share. Although in close relationship with the districts, he lives well off their population. Its prestigious trade and of positive ratio dissociates it peasants. Its ease grants a privileged position to him and enviable: flour-milling constitutes a kind of elite. The miller is one of rare to usually handle the money, it plays on occasion the part of usurer.

He draws his ease from a strong position in the agro-pastoral economy: all the peasants are obliged to pass some by him. He works mainly rye, but also of other cereals. He makes pay his service while using of the right of pugnère (handle): he takes a share of the grist (from 10 to 20%). And some have the reputation to have the heavy hand. More and more at the XIXe century, the expenses of grinding are discharged in cash. On several occasions the administration had to intervene for réfréner the cupidity of the millers, shown to cheat in the art of the weights and measures. Able to only treat the grain essential to basic food, the bread, it has the monopoly of the tool of transformation: the mill.

Nothing astonishing whereas at the 18th century, the notable ones speculate in the purchase of mills. So the miller is not always owner of his mill. He is sometimes farmer, bound by a lease to the owner with whom he pays an annual rent primarily in kind (bag of grains, poultries, district of pig). In this case, the miller is rather resulting from a family of owner-plowmen, insurance of serious and solvency for the owner of the mill.

Because of the site of the mill, the miller lives with the variation of the districts. To be established, it must find the bottom of a valley of river sufficiently widened to accommodate all the elements of the surface miller: its house, the mill, various additional buildings as well as the derivation of the river, stopping and the pond of reserve.

In spite of his insulation, the miller maintains a relation followed with the peasants the districts neighborhood. At the time of its round in cart, he visits his customers, taking here a bag of grain to carry it with the mill, bringing back a bag of grinding there. The way of the mill ( camin moulié in Gascon) materializes the bond which exists between the river and the districts.

At his place, the miller, helped of its family and possibly of a servant, maintains a farmyard, a garden, hives, a pig etc which provide him a good portion of its food. With waste of its grinding, it nourishes a batch of fish (pikes, trouts, eels) in the pond of reserve.

The time of the Utopias

Many are those which believed to see a promising ground here, an ideal area for the development of the French Agriculture. Thus, at the XIXe century, the Moors of Gascogne are the theater many experiments, which call into question the traditional system, while seeking to diversify agriculture: Rice, Groundnut S, Tobacco, Mulberry tree S, breedings in any kind… all these projects show crashing to pieces failures and only the Maritime pine succeeds in drawing its pin from the play. The local elite and certain great landowners do not hesitate to introduce new gasolines, to dig irrigation canals, to cross ovine races. It is the time of the large industrial and agricultural companies.

Ruin of Nézer

The Swiss financier Daniel Nézer is accommodated in the Moors by the Captal de Buch François de Ruat in 1765. He buys with this last the vast ones extended from moor on the parishes of Tests It, Gujan and Teich, with like objective reselling part of these grounds to investors, renting another portion with small dealers and to clear and cultivate the remainder. About thirty Swiss families settle in the captalat of Buch in order to complete the agricultural work and Nézer their fact of building thirty farms in order to place them. But, after having paid its very expensive ground, it engages of Pharaonic work: digging of Craste S, opening of ways, plantation of sowing of the pines, rye, oats, corn culture, of vines, breeding of cattle and grubbing of moor.

It is a bitter failure. Incompetent to refund the colossal debt that it contracted, and without carrying out any return on investment, it dies ruined in 1770. However Nézer remains one of the precursors of the forest of the Moors, since the only success of its company, they are sowings of pines, which will be admired 5 years later per Guillaume Desbiey, right before writing its report on the way of drawing part of the Moors from Gascogne… (1776) in particular thanks to plantations of maritime pines.

Moors of the seigniory of Certainly

The marquis de Civrac inherits in 1757 the seigniory Certainly, in the North-East of the Basin of Arcachon. This seigniory comprises 100.000 ha of moor between Audenge and Saint-Jean-with Illac. The marquis de Civrac grants concessions to Sirs de Moriencourt and of Sallignac, who have a a little original agricultural project at the head. It was a question of establishing some 1700 smallholdings there to cultivate various vegetables there. The traditional system of fertilization of the grounds is immediately drawn aside, and the few pines lost in the desert are cut. In spite of the efforts of Moriencourt and Sallignac, the cleared moor is transformed into marsh. The fate of the marquis de Civrac is identical to that of its neighbor Nézer, it dies ruined in 1768.

Company of argiculture of the Moors

In 1801, the prefect of the department of the Moors, Mr. Méchin, inaugurates the Société of agriculture of the Moors . He recommends the drying of the marshes then, the creation of transportation, and favourable freedom from tax routes to attract labor in the area. Various experiments are undertaken: one sows groundnut between Dax and Mount-with-Marsan, one creates even an oil mill in preparation for future harvests… which are born never. In 1803, the cultures are abandoned. After the visit of Napoleon i in 1808, one decides to drain the marshes of Orx and to dig a channel connecting the Adour to the the Garonne by Mount-of-Marsan. Neither the drainage, nor the channel will be carried out. Work in the marshes of Orx begins independently of this company under Napoleon III.

Firm experimental of Pessac

In December 1819, the count de Tournon forms a commission with an aim of seeking means of improving the cultures in the Moors of Gascogne. The members of this commission recommend the draining of the marshy moor, the construction of channels, roads and installations returning the navigable Leyre. The first idea to concretize consite to carry out an experimental farm, which will be established in the Moors of Pessac, near Bordeaux. The baron d' Haussez, senior official of the Restauration hardly discovering the desert landais, succeeds the count de Tournon and inaugurates the establishment. This experimental farm has as an ambition to improve and rationalize the traditional sytème, and plays the part of laboratory in life size. One thus introduced there exotic gasolines of trees, Swiss cows, goats of Tibet, English pigs and Hungarian sows. It is a true financial fiasco. Mr. d' Haussez wants to form large artificial meadows to cultivate there barley, Betterave, Trèfle and Luzerne. Many debates oppose the utopians as Mr. de Haussez with the skeptics, who extremely precisely consider that the sterility of the grounds landais does not allow to concretize these agricultural dreams. The only solution would be to fertilize the grounds… what is precisely at the base of the traditional agro-pastoral system.

The Sahara of France

Agricultural and Industrial company of Arcachon

The Agricultural and Industrial Compagnie of Arcachon sees the day in 1837, thanks to the investments of Parisian Aristocrate S, seeing in this country the poor and arid promise of new a Eldorado. With the installation of a whole system of Irrigation since the Channel of the Moors, connecting the lake of Cazaux to the Basin of Arcachon, they think of being able to return the grounds, located on the plain of Cazaux (with Teste of Buch), fertile and to develop the food crops to withdraw important benefit from them. The arrival of water, initially allows the culture of Carotte S and Blé, replacing the millet and the Seigle. However, this poor ground that one can neither amend nor to fatten is not productive enough and generates, in 1846, the bankruptcy of this company.

Working company of Colonization of the Moors of Gascogne

The year 1849 sees the creation of the Working Compagnie of Colonization of the Moors of Gascogne . It repurchases the pieces given up by the Agricultural and Industrial Compagnie of Arcachon to exploit Rizière S there by drowning the fields thanks to the existing irrigation. In 1850 and 1852, respectively 3.000 and 10.000 hectolitres of Riz are collected, giving a judged rice of quality higher than that cultivated in India. The Public Minister for Labor, accompanied by the prefect by the Gironde and members of the General advice visit the rice plantations of the Pays of Buch in 1852. The press ensures that from here a few years one will see emerging from the thousands of hectares of rice plantations between the mouth of the Gironde and that of Adour, along the Big lakes landais. Many projects are launched by the shareholders: varity of the cultures and extraordinary promises of outputs, creation of a basin of employment without precedent around the Company. Unfortunately, an unquestionable ignorance of the grounds of the Moors of Tests and of Gujan lead the company right to liquidation.

Victoire of the forest

Fury of the pastors landais

The shepherds landais do not see arriving the forest of very an good eye. Systematic timbering is synonymous for them with disappearance of the moor, depriving their herds of food. It is all the agro-pastoral balance which is some upset. In spite of the prohibitions fomulées by the Parliament of Bordeaux as of 1705, of the pastors regularly set fire to young sowings of pine at the time of the spring burn-beating. Shortly after the relative law with the cleansing and the setting in culture of the Moors of Gascogne of 1857, the fires multiply: in the years 1870,40 000 hectares burn in the Large Moor, 10.000 hectares in the south of the Gironde, 6.500 hectares with Audenge, others still with Lacanau, Cestas, Saucats… the list is still long.

If the shepherds put fire, the farmers support them and often employ them. The very whole population is favorable to a maintenance of the traditional agro-pastoral system. Under the impulse of Jules Chambrelent, the Council of State adopts a bill aiming prohibiting any use of fire in the Moors of Gascogne and at repressing the flamers. The reactions to this bill are not long in being felt, complaints and petitions tributary of all the communes of the Girondin west and the department of the Moors. The August 21st 1873 the General advice of the Moors receives the director of the Forests from Paris, while at the same moment, the General advice of the Gironde delegates a commission and addresses a protest coming from 101 communes of the department to the Company of the farmers of France.

The opinion which emerges coming from observers lit like Octave Cazauvieilh, is that the practices of landais were upset too abruptly. It would have been necessary to preserve spaces for the shepherds and to make so that the transition is softer. The bill is given up and one marks a pause in the extension of the Forêt of the Moors. The photographs of Felix Arnaudin still show vast pastures in 1874. But the machine is launched and on the thousands of owners decide to sow pines, considering more profitable the pignada than the moor. In parallel one digs many ditches of drainage and the Gemmeur S start to collect the “white gold” of the forest. At the beginning of the XXe century, there do not remain almost any more pastors landais.

Towards a new balance

Sources

Felix Arnaudin, complete Works (8 volumes), PNRLG - Editions Junctions
Collective, Moors , Chritine Bonneton Editor, Paris, 1991
Francis Dupuy, the Pine of the discord , reports/ratios of share-cropping in the Large Moor , Editions of the House of the Social sciences, Paris, 1996
Georgette Laporte-Castède, Rye bread and wine of thrushes , Editions of the Wood pigeon, Bazas, 1997
Pierre Toulgouat, rural life and the house in the old Moor , Marrimpouey and PNRLG, 1987
Team of the Écomusée of the Large Moor, Marquèze, Écomusée of the Large Moor (guide of the visitor)
Jacques Sargos - History of the forest Landaise , the Chimerical Horizon, Bordeaux, 1997

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