Old McDubois had a farm

Harry Pearson explores the indigenous breeds of France and explains why they are worthy of English envy

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IN recent decades, the French farmer has regarded his British counterpart in much the same way a puritan looks upon mud-wrestling. It was not always so. For a large part of the 19th century, the agricultural community of France was gripped by rampant Anglophilia. Inspired by that Georgian agricultural wonder the Ketton Ox, French landowners imported bulls from Co Durham and brought over the famous rams bred by Robert Bakewell at Dishley in Leicestershire to impregnate their flocks.

British livestock was bigger, grew faster and ate less. The French had nothing to match it. Not then, anyway. The situation was changed by two decades of disaster. Over a 15-year period, beginning in about 1863, the phylloxera blight would destroy 40% of French vines and, in 1870, the FrancoPrussian War overthrew the Third Empire and laid waste to France’s economy. With withered vineyards and no cash for imports, the French agriculturalist looked for new ways to make money and indigenous livestock with which to do it.

Provence, €3.6 million (about £3.15m)
This wonderful rural estate is situated in a tranquil setting close to the Gorges du Verdon. The land-a mixture of fields and woodland-comprises 97 hectares (240 acres) and would be suitable for vines, lavender, crops, horses or other livestock.