176 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



mriits) wlicie tliey are located. The directors are clioseu by a com- 

 mittee api)()iiited under rcfiulations prescribed by the Ministry of 

 Agriculture, whose members in ust be capable of Judging whether the 

 candidates possess the necessary scientific attainments. An advisory 

 committee of station ofticers aids the Ministry in determining whether 

 the stations have properly discharged their duties and how the funds 

 appropriated by the general government shall be divided among them. 

 A member of this committee is selei^ted each year to inspect the 

 stations. The inspectors thus far appointed have been MM. Miintz and 

 Grandeau. M. Tisserand holds that this system is more economical 

 and gives better results than if the stations were wholly under the 

 direction of the Ministry of Agriculture and derived all their funds 

 from the national treasury. The single improvement in the conduct of 

 the stations which he urges is that the directors be required to explain 

 the work of the stations to assemblies of farmers two or three times a 

 year, with a view to giving the farmers a better understanding of what 

 the stations are doing and to enabling the stations to find out wherein 

 their investigations fail to meet the needs of practical men. 



The report of M. Tisserand above referred to, which presents in a 

 very clear Avay the history and present organization of agricultural 

 education and investigation in France, contains much that is of great 

 interest. The wonderful development of institutions for instruction 

 and research in agriculture under the Eepublic, and the complete way 

 in which the needs of various classes of the rural population are pro- 

 vided for in the system now in operation, show the im])ortance which has 

 been attached to this matter by the leaders of public opinion in France 

 during the past twenty- five years. Beginning with the thoroughly 

 scientific course of instruction in the Institut Agronomique at Paris, 

 agriculture in varying proportions of theory and practice is taught in 

 schools of all grades down to the primary. To provide for the educa- 

 tion of teachers of agriculture for the lower schools, as well as to keep 

 the adult farmers acquainted with the progress of their art, 110 pro- 

 fessors (or lecturers) of agriculture are now at Avork in the different 

 districts. In 1893 those professors gave instruction to 2,600 or 2,700 

 students in the normal schools and to more than 300,000 persons who 

 attended their conferences. But perhaps the most striking feature of 

 this vast sj^stem of agricultural education are the model fields {champs 

 de demonstration), of which there are now more than 3,000 in France. 

 "The results obtained," says M. Tisserand, '"are remarkable. The 

 model fields, by showing at all points of onr territory to the eyes of 

 the farmers the results that may be obtained by the application of cer- 

 tain fertilizers, by certain methods of culture, by certain varieties of 

 jjlants, etc., have been the cause of important improvements; and there 

 is only a beginning, ... It can be said without fear that the model 

 fields have been one of the powerful factors in increasing our agricul- 

 tural production.' . 



