124 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



walk round, passing beneath the straw-shaker. The 

 mode in which this arrangement is carried out in several 

 instances reminds us strongly of the children's round- 

 abouts in the gay avenues of the Champs Elysees. 



Some curious contrivances are shown in the valves, 

 governors, &c. of steam-encfines : one portable engine 

 has its cylinder, crak-shaft, bearings, pump, &c., and all 

 its working parts, fixed on a cast-iron bed-plate, bolted 

 on the top of the boiler. There is some extra weight 

 in this arrangement, but it gives the facility of being 

 able to remove at pleasure the whole of the engine from 

 the boiler, for repairs or other purposes. One manufac- 

 turer constructs a portable engine and thrashing-ma- 

 chine, all upon one pair of carriage-wheels. Endless- 

 belt straw-shakers are very common ; and riddles of 

 various kinds, attempt to solve the very difficult pro- 

 blem of the best shaped hole or slat, &c., for separating 

 corn from cavings. In the way of grass-mowers there 

 are several contrivances for mowing by revolving scythe- 

 blades, attached to a little machine pushed forward by 

 hand. There is actually a scythe-blade mounted on a 

 support, with small travelling- wheels : this is drawn for- 

 ward by a cord coiled round the barrel of a small 

 portable windlass in the form of a strong dung-fork. 

 While one man winds up the rope with a wrench, 

 another man guides the travelling scythe, giving it a 

 slashing motion by means of a handle. There is one 

 mower with small cutters on an endless chain 3 one with 

 fixed cutters, and the fingers made to oscillate with a radial 

 motion, and so clip the grass ; and there are several 

 machines with endless-chain, endless-bands, &c., for 

 delivering the cut hay in a swathe. One machine is of 

 triangular knives, in shape like a thistle-cutter, or a 

 snow-plough ; one machine has the old revolving disc, 

 with fixed fingers to hold the gear. One machine, 

 very cumbrous in its construction, has a novel method 

 of allowing the cutter-bar to adjust itself to inequalities 

 of ground ; the cutters are in front of the main frame, 

 and hung upon a loose frame balanced upon an axis at 

 right angles to the advance of the machine. There is a 

 colossal horse-rake, for drawing up hay into winrows, 

 but its action was very imperfect. There are horse- 

 rakes in which the driver is mounted upon a seat over 

 the front, just behind the horse's tail, and delivers the 

 collected hay by depressing a foot-board : but of course, 

 to know if you are doing your work clean, you ought to 

 follow the impl(^ent and see how the work is being 

 done. I cannot detail all the implements here exhibited 

 of English makers through their agents, but I am sorry 

 to say that the judges being to a considerable extent 

 Parisian gentlemen instead of practical farmers, have 

 given prizes to implements with little comparative merit, 

 and at any rate have looked well to the credit of the 

 native makers. Howard, Ransomes and Sims, Garrett, 

 Barrett and Exall, Ashby, Page, and many other well- 

 known firms, are here ; also Smith's and Fowler's steam- 

 ploughs. A large number of English implements arrived 

 too late for admittance into the show, among which were 

 a large assortment of Bentall's broadshares, pulpers, 

 &c., and Bradford's new washing-machine. The steam- 

 plough of M. Lotz, of Nantes, is an unmechanical 

 imitation of some English inventors : the barrels (on a 

 fixed windlass) upon which the wire ropes are v/ound, are 

 only some 18 inches diameter ; the sheaves or pulleys 

 even smaller. The anchorages are of plate-iron, like 

 long flat pans turned upside down, the flanges cutting 

 into the soil, and presenting resistance to a side strain. 

 They are drawn forward by a hand windlass, like that 

 of an old-fashioned wii-^-mill. The implement is a 

 single turnwrest plough ot large dimensions, for deep 

 work. 



In the galleries of the Palace is a wonderful and most 

 interesting collection of products and materials useful 



to,agricuUure. The various agricultural associations of 

 France contribute samples and specimens from the 

 different departments : there are a great number of 

 stalls and stands filled with the productions of private 

 exhibitors ; and the special shows of colonial products 

 are valuable and elaborate in the extreme. .We have 

 grains, fruits, collections of insects, wools, wines, 

 products of agriculture, products of the forest, as fuel, 

 charcoal, bark, timber, acorns, mast, nuts, resin, &c. ; in 

 fact, a complete study of the whole would occupy many 

 months, and a due report would fill many volumes. 

 The grand exhibition of colonial produce includes infinite 

 specimens of woods, textile raw materials, cotton, &c., 

 silk, dyes, gums, oils, meals, sugars, alcohols, coffees, 

 spices, medicines, grains, tobacco, honey, wax, &c., 

 &c., &c. 



The whole value and significance to us of the exhibited 

 agricultural productions of France itself, is dependent 

 upon our knowledge of the surface which yields them; a 

 few facts may, therefore, be of service. The whole 

 French territory is about 130 millions of acres, about 

 two-thirds of which area is cultivated, and so largely 

 are grain crops grown, that while a proportion of only 

 one-sixteenth of the whole surface of Britain is so 

 appropriated, nearly a quarter of the entire surface of 

 France is under cereal crops. The disparity in the 

 quality of husbandry, however, is so wide, that if the 

 French average yield equalled ours, their gross produce 

 would be double its present figure : for the French 

 average is "only 14 bushels of wheat or 11 of rye per 

 acre. Owing to the backward state of agriculture in 

 the centre and south, wheat cannot be grown as the 

 chief grain crop, as with us. In a country sparsely 

 peopled, that is, having scarcely any large towns, little 

 or no manufactures, and trade confined to the limited 

 wants of the inhabitants, the cultivators are not able 

 to introduce such improvements in management as are 

 necessary to the successful'growth of wheat ; they raise 

 wretched yields of rye instead, as the English formerly 

 did ; the climate enables them also to raise maize and 

 buckwheat; so that the harvest of these three grains 

 amounts in quantity of produce to much more than half 

 the amount of wheat. There being no market at hand, 

 the expenses of transport to the north as to the coast would 

 in many districts equal the entire value of the produce : 

 the metayer and his master cultivate the crops merely for 

 a bare subsistence, and, land being abundant, and fallow- 

 ing sufficient to support such poor cropping, have no 

 inducement to enter upon a better system. While the cul- 

 tivated land of England may average £^32, that of the 

 north of France is ,£24, and of the south half ^£'16 per 

 acre, in money value. 



Of the best vineyards, the gardens, the lands bearing 

 flax, hops, mulberry, tobacco, and madder, the produce 

 rises as high as £20, £30, or even £50 per acre. The 

 general average of animal and vegetable products of 

 the cultivated land, excluding the extremes of wood and 

 water, and these highly managed lands, is about 34s. 

 per acre. Dividing France into two equal portions, 

 north and south, there is a gross production of £2 per 

 acre for the northern division, and 26s per acre for the 

 southern, which ought to be the richest. In some 

 localities, as in the environs of Orange and Avignon, 

 the vineyards of Cognac and Bordeaux, the districts 

 producing oil, silk, &c., the returns are magnificent; 

 but the landes and the mountains cover a fourth of the 

 soil, and the remainder is most of it farmed without 

 capital or intelligence. 



Comparing the departments together, the most pro- 

 ductive are those of the Nord, Pas-de-Calais, Somme, 

 Oise, and Seine-Infeieure, where the average gross 

 production is GOs. per acre. The department of the 

 Nord produces at least £i per acre, but this is the only 



