"Un p'tit sou, siou plaît, m'ssius!" Begging has ever since been the predominant and all-prevailing instinct of the upper region of the Couserans.
The population here as elsewhere in the mountains is dwindling owing to emigration, mainly to South America, especially to the Argentine Republic. This is largely due to the peasant seeing the comfort and comparative wealth of his brother peasant in the plain, the proprietor of vineyard and olive-yard, and of mulberry trees that feed silkworms. He returns to his Alpine pastures sulky and dissatisfied with his condition. He is unwilling to change his native, deeply-rooted customs of farming, that are unscientific and wasteful, incapable maybe of realizing that he might do better if he adopted newer methods.
"Nevertheless," says M. Ardouin-Dumazet, "he might lead a better existence if he could be brought to limit the quantity of his cattle to that number which he could rear suitably; if he would consent to make a practical use of the milk of his flocks. But everywhere in Ariège one finds every little property support three times as many beasts as the soil can well sustain; the result is lean cattle, giving poor meat and milk, giving consequently but an insufficient return of revenue.
"However, nowhere has the problem of the renovation of the pastures and the animals that overrun it been more studied and theoretically resolved. The Board of Forestry has shown by example how that the extent of meadowland and the quality of the grass might be largely extended. But everywhere it encounters invincible routine.
"Every hamlet, every farm has its stables, in which during the winter the beasts are crowded in conditions of hygiene absolutely deplorable. Air, light, litter are wanting; the fodder is measured out sparingly. If the winter be long there is dearth, for the number of beasts is out of all proportion to the resources of the forage.
