366 On Public Institutions for the 



rent need not be paid in money, provided it can be shown to have 

 been laid out in the improvement of the land itself. Thus, if 

 after ten years the improvements effected upon the property shall 

 be estimated at 50,000 francs, the Company will have complied 

 with the terms of the agreement without any actual transfer of 

 money into the hands of government. 



Now the objects, in consideration of which the above terms 

 were granted, consisted, in the first place, in exhibiting to the 

 public the example of a better system of husbandry than that ordi- 

 narily adopted, and, in the second, in training up to agricultural 

 pursuits a number of youths, by means of a system of education, 

 which, besides its usual practical character, should also embrace 

 the elements of general learning, as well as the principles of those 

 sciences which bear some relation to the art intended to be prac- 

 tised by them. 



Since, therefore, the director of the establishment stood to the 

 Company in the relation of a bailiff to his landlord, the difficult 

 problem imposed upon him was that of reconciling his obligations 

 to the latter, with the understanding that a good and economical 

 education should be supplied to the youths who desired to take 

 advantage of the Institution. Accordingly, for some time after it 

 had been set on foot, the Establishment laboured under embarrass- 

 ments arising from this twofold character ; the objects for which 

 it had been founded, though apparently allied, being often found 

 to clash one with the other, inasmuch as a due care to provide fit 

 instruction for the students who resorted to it as a school of hus- 

 bandry, often militated against the observance of that rigid eco- 

 nomy which was necessary, in order to evince to the neighbouring 

 farmers that the system pursued was more advantageous than 

 their own : added to which, that the original contributors regarded 

 their subscriptions in the light of an investment, rather than as a 

 free gift to the public, and therefore looked to some return in the 

 shape of interest for the capital they had supplied. 



Accordingly, the director, M. Bella, in his Report for 1839, 

 undertakes to show, not only that an interest of 4 per cent, had 

 each year been paid to the subscribers, but also that the actual 

 increase in the value of the property itself amounted in ten years 

 to 145,852 francs, being more, by 95,852, than the amount ori- 

 ginally stipulated for by government. This increase consisted in 

 buildings, roads, &c. created on the estate, as well as in the 

 superior productiveness of the land caused by the labour expended 

 upon it. He admits, however, that in accomplishing this part of 

 his duties he had been compelled to sacrifice in a degree the in- 

 terests of the public, to whom the efficiency of the establishment 

 as a school of agriculture was in fact the primary object; for, 

 notwithstanding the sacrifices which had been made of a portion of 



