Garrigue villages
The canton of Aniane includes seven villages: Aniane, Puéchabon, La Boissière, Argelliers, Montarnaud, Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert and Saint-Paul-et-Valmalle. In his book entitled « Un canton des Garrigues » (A Canton in the Garrigue), Jean-François Lalanne describes the way of life of its inhabitants and the hard lives of the peasants towards the end of the 18th century. Life in the garrigue is indeed hard and the land is not very fertile.
On the plain, from the 19th century onwards, most of the cultivable land was turned over exclusively to wine growing. But because of the nature of their soil, certain villages in the canton took no part in this period of expansion in wine growing and instead distinguished themselves through the cultivation of olives and of herbs, forestry and raising sheep, goats and silkworms. All the above-named activities have left their mark on the history of each of these villages and made them quite unique in the valley: “Canton in the Garrigue” is not just a name, it is truly an identity.
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