278 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



In seasons when the cereal harvests have fallen below the average, we 

 have been obliged to resort to foreign nations to supply the deficit j 

 and if the people have not recently suffered serious privation, it is be- 

 cause the provident solicitude of the government has taken in time the 

 necessary measures to prevent such a calamity. It would be fatal to 

 rest quietly in a state of false security, and far better to recognize the 

 existence of a permanent danger to which a remedy may be applied 

 than to be unprepared for some casualty (a war for instance) which 

 might be of such a nature as at any time to prevent the importation of 

 the necessaries which we require. 



To insure food to the people by applying the discoveries of science to 

 the pursuits of agriculture, to encourage labor, repeople the impover- 

 ished streams, and make the most of the sea-coast ; in a word, to create 

 more abundant and cheaper resources of nourishment are motives which 

 ought to enlist the most intense co-operation of all who have at heart 

 the prosperity of the country. 



Among the means which we have in our power for this desirable end, 

 one of the most effective is to acclimate in France the vegetables and 

 animals of other countries. How many instances of the acclimation of 

 vegetables might be mentioned ; and, if we would speak of any one in 

 particular, there is that modest plant, the potato.* Imported from 

 America in the sixteenth century, it produced such a revolution in pub- 

 lic economy that entire populations now depend upon it for subsistence. 

 Maize is another example of the same kind. 



The acclimation of animals also has added greatly to the national 

 wealth. The Arabian horse, and the merino sheep from Spain, have 

 renewed our degenerate races. The turkey from America, the guinea-fowl 

 from Africa, the cock from China and India, the duck from Barbary, 

 as well as various kinds of pigeons, &c, are found on our farms in great 

 numbers, and by crossing them with indigenous species most savory 

 and important edible products have been furnished. 



For several years the Imperial Society of Acclimation has made the 

 most laudable efforts to secure for France new resources of food and 

 trade, while similar societies iu the departments have concurred in this 

 eminently patriotic undertaking. Through their efforts the liemionus, or 

 wild ass, has been completely domesticated, and is about to become an 

 important element in the horse trade, of which it will form a most grace- 

 ful ornament. The Angora sheep is now reared in several parts of 

 France without perceptible degeneration ; while the young ostriches, 

 born and raised in the zoological gardens of Algiers and Marseilles, 

 give us ground to hope that the time is not far distant when the 

 flesh of these birds will rank among the choicest viands of the market. 



* The potato was imported into Ireland in 1545, by Captain John Hawkins. It 

 was cultivated in Lancashire in 1084 ; in Saxe in 1717 ; in Scotland in 1728 ; and ten 

 years later it spread over Prussia. In France it was cultivated in several provinces dur- 

 ing the reign of Louis XV ; but it was Parmentier, who, at the close of the last century* 

 was the most active in its propagation inour country. LouiUct, (E:icyclor>t ! die Moderni.) 



