490 
careful examination failed to detect a single one on the vines. The 
roots of maize planted in a field alongside the vineyard did not present 
any trace of the phylloxera. ; 
M. Pignéde found an effective remedy in digging, during March and 
April, a trench.4 inches deep around his infested vines, and throwing 
in 500 grams (1.1025 pounds) of burnt lime. He then whitewashed 
the vine after having removed its bark. This operation, he declares, 
destroyed the greater part of the insects and their eggs, and arrested 
the hatching of the eggs already deposited upon the vine. The first 
year afterward the vines gave out vigorous shoots, and the second year 
fine grapes in large quantities. The lime, applied to healthy vines, pre- 
serves them from the attacks of the phylloxera. 
NATIONAL AGRONOMIC INSTITUTE OF FRANCE.—The republic, which 
sprang from the revolution of 1848, signalized its: devotion to the 
productive interests of France by organizing at Versailles (October 3, 
1848) an agricultural university with the above title, a school of the 
highest rank, and embracing the widest range of agricultural and zo- 
otechnic studies then known. The full significance and value of the 
enterprise was but superficially understood by those who were charged 
with its primary organization. Its legitimate university character was 
ignored, and its resources were mostly limited to the maintenance of a 
museum of living type-apimals. Its large experimental area of 1,525 
hectares (3,362.22 acres) was absorbed mainly by horse-farms, cattle- 
farms, sheep-farms, &c., leaving but a small portion for investigations 
outside of zodtechny. It contained representatives of all the European 
types of farm-animals, including 500 cattle, 120 horses, and 2,000 sheep. 
It Very imperfectly represented other great branches of agricultural 
production. 
_ In 1851 its direction was confided to Count Gasparin, one of the most 
illustrious agronomists of the nineteenth century, who at once recog- 
nized the errors of its previous administration, and projected radical re- 
forms intended to realize more thoroughly the legitimate aims of a uni- 
versity.. He abandoned the cumbrous and expensive farm organizations 
which parceled out the experimental area, discharged a host of super- 
numerary Officials, and cut down the expenses of administration. He 
retained a sufficient number of choice animals to fully illustrate specific 
types of reproduction, and the remainder he sold or distributed among 
the regional and farm schools devoted to special cultures. He organ- 
ized a system of general experimental culture and instruction, embrae- 
ing all branches of agricultural production, just such as was suited to 
the wants of all the agricultural regions of France. 
But these nobly administrative reforms were rendered nugatory by a 
decree dated September 17, 1852, issued byauthority of Louis Napoleon, 
President of the French Republic, whereby the Agronomic Institute of 
Versailles was suppressed, on the pretext that its curriculum of studies 
was too extended and abstract for the necessities of French agriculture. 
The corps of instructors was disbanded, and the costly material that 
had been gathered was either scattered or wasted. The experimental 
grounds grew up in briars, thistles, and wild shrubbery, and became the 
hunting-grounds of the imperial myrmidons of the secondempire. This 
reactionary measure has been deeply deplored by French agronomists 
as retarding, to an incalculable degree, the scientific development of 
agriculture in France. 
The republican principle, which has finally predominated in the recon- 
stitution of the French government, exhibited its true instinct of prog- 
ress in re-organizing, by act of August 9, 1876, the National Agronomic 
