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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



spring, and last Weclnesiluy I saw it at work in a field 

 of one of them, ploughing a piece of vetches fed off 

 with sheep, to prepare for turnips. The work was ex- 

 cellent. The owner of it was so delighted with it, that 

 he immediately went and offered the maker, Mr. Emer- 

 son, a present of five guineas (though he had before 

 paid for the instrument), as a mark of his approbation, 

 which Mr. Emerson very properly declined to accept. 

 The great merit of this instrument appears to me to be, 

 independent of the great reduction of the expense of 

 tillage by rendering a plough unnecessary, that it mcikes 

 land much filler than any plough can do, even with the 

 assistance of drags and harroios ; and though I have 

 not studied it sufficient to be certain why it should have 

 that effect, I have a firm belief of the fact. I put in a 



crop of wheat with it in September last ; the land was 

 worked twice over toith it : it was then with a double 

 mouldboard plough throioninto three-feet ridges, one 

 acre in the whole ; and for experiment half of it was 

 drilled with two rows of seed in each ridge, and the 

 other half dibbled with two rows on each ridge, nine 

 inches from hole to hole. It would be difficult for any 

 ' person to say at present which will be the best crop, 

 but they are both remarkably fine. The drilled part 

 took half a bushel of seed — the dibbled three quarts 

 only. The wheat is now in blossom, and is above six 

 feet high throughout." Here, then, was another early 

 instance of the Woolston practice of cleaning with a 

 grubber, and then ridging with the double-mouldboard 

 plough, though for a wheat instead of a bean crop. 



AN HISTORICAL MEMOIR OF ROYER. 



[translated from the "journal d'agriculture pratique."] 



The man whose life and works I have to relate died 

 at the age of thirty-six years ; but, in the course of so 

 rapid a career, he has had time to attach his name to 

 many useful projects which have for the most part been 

 since realized. He has sown what other heads have 

 reaped. Such is too often the destiny of the agricul- 

 turist. For him, more than for any other class, labour 

 is long and life is short, and it is so much the more a 

 duty of those who survive to recall services too soon 

 interrupted, too soon forgotten, while, in the meantime, 

 our turn comes to disappear, leaving also our enter- 

 prises incomplete and our designs unfinished. 



Charles Edward Royer was born at Paris on the 2nd 

 January, 1811, of a family not in afHueut circumstances. 

 His first advances in life were made under difficulties, 

 and he owes everything to himself and his perseverance 

 in labour in regard to the honourable station he occu- 

 pied. While still a child, he entered the Museum of 

 Natural History as gardener's pupil, under the auspices 

 of our colleague M. Pepin. There he was recommended 

 to another of our colleagues, M. Vilmorin the elder, 

 who at first took him into his house as private secretary ; 

 but, having soon discovered his quick intelligence, placed 

 him in the situation of steward over his estate of the 

 Barres, near Nogent-sur-Vernisson. It was on this 

 domain, which is justly celebrated for the works 

 executed by M. Vilmorin, and especially his admirable 

 plantations, that Royer made his first campaign, and he 

 could not have gone to a better school. His accounts, 

 kept with remarkable correctness, displayed at that 

 time the taste for statistics which were so brilliantly 

 developed in him afterwards. 



He quitted the Barres in 1836, to become manager 

 of the Po9ting-house at Nogent. A short time after, 

 a meeting having been held at Grignon to establish a 

 chair of rural economy, he competed for, and obtained 

 it, being then in his twenty-fifth year. 



The course which he adopted at Grignon has never 

 been published, but is said to exist in manuscript. All 

 those who have heard it agree in saying that the young 



professor distinguished himself by a rare expansion of 

 mind and an abundant facility of elocution. He was 

 then at that age at which the understanding possesses all 

 its sap — we might almost say all its intoxication, and at 

 which we are so happy to learn and so happy to teach. 

 Impatient to know and to communicate everything, he 

 threw into the rather confused frame -work of his lessons 

 the fruits of his immense reading j and not content with 

 the vigils which the preparation of his course imposed 

 upon him, he simultaneously pursued the study of 

 several languages, undertook even to learn medicine, 

 and acquired the diploma of doctor. This severe work 

 was not without its influence upon his health, and pro- 

 bably laid the foundation of his premature death. 



His first work, " The Cultivator's Catechism for 

 the Arrondissement of Montarges," procured for him 

 in 1839 one of the gold medals of our society. En- 

 couraged by this reward, he published the following 

 year " A Theoretic and Practical Treatise of Rural 

 Accounts,'^ and left Grignon to take in Paris the 

 direction of an agricultural journal (The Moniteur of 

 Property), which he held for four years. He wrote in 

 this journal a great number of articles on economic 

 questions in their relation with agriculture, and thus pre- 

 pared himself for his great work, entitled " Economic 

 Notes on the Administration of the Agricultural 

 Riches and Statistics of France." This book, pub- 

 lished in 1845, is the first that established his reputation, 

 and it requires of us a moment's consideration. 



The Grand Agricultural Statistic had just been 

 finished by the Government. Royer formed the happy 

 idea of republishing in one volume, of a form more con- 

 venient, the straggling figures in the four large volumes 

 of the official publication, adding to it his own observa- 

 tions. He then passes in review every species of 

 animals and every cultivation, from those which annually 

 create milliards in value, as winter and spring cereals, 

 to those which occupy only a few hectares, as woad and 

 saffron ; and, after having exposed on each subject the 

 given numbers which he borrowed from the official 



