FARMERS' REGISTER— FRENCH AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



433 



more profitable. This is particularly worth the con- 

 sideration of the members of our newly formed agri- 

 cultural societies — which if constituted and operating 

 as has been the case heretofore, will find their greatest 

 diificulty to be, that when they meet, there is nothing 

 presented for them to hear, or to discuss. We are a 

 talking rather than a wriling people. On the French 

 pl.Aii of procedure, there would be no lack of assistants, 

 nor of facts and opinions which they would present in 

 conversation: and these conversations would lead to 

 written memoirs from individual members, and reports 

 of committees on the various subjects introduced, 

 which would furnish plenty of business of a more de- 

 liberate and solid kind. We proceed to the extracts, 

 taken from the Annales d' Agriculture Francuise. 



Sunnnary of the sitti7ig of December 4, 1833. 



"The President of the Agricultural Society of Lyons 

 presents a copy of the work of Butret upon the pru- 

 ning of fruit trees, of the edition published by the so- 

 ciety of Lyons. He announces that he has made some 

 experiments upon the method of planting twigs, oi 

 cuttings, of fruit trees, inserted in the roots of potatoes. 

 His trials have all been fruitless: the cuttings have 

 perished. In some cases the potatoes have rotted, in 

 others they have sprouted. A member of the society 

 observes, that the roots of the potatoes were only dug 

 into to receive the ends of the cuttings, and that per- 

 haps thej' ought to have been pierced through from 

 one side to the other, in order that the radicles which 

 would be developed around the cutting, might bs able 

 immediately to find soil; which is perhaps the reason 

 of the failures — the result being opposed to those of 

 other experiments." 



"M. Huzard made a verbal report upon a little 

 printed work of Sir John Sinclair's, upon the Roman 

 Malaria. He concludes that the translation of this 

 work may be useful, on account of the general views 

 which it contains upon the bringing into cultivation 

 marshy and unhealthy lands. The societ}'' sends tiie 

 work to the editors of the Annales d' Agriculture." 



The work of Sir John Sinclair's referred to, is that 

 which was published in the first volume of the Farm- 

 ers' Register. 



December ISth, 1S3.S.— "M. Chabrol de Volvie states 

 that he was present at the trial of the viechanical tum- 

 bril, (machine for removing earth,) of M. Paulin 

 Palissard (the son.) The machine appeared to him to 

 fulfil the intention of the inventor; but that it is rather 

 too complicated. The common ravale without wheels, 

 which is employed by our cultivators to level their 

 land, to dig ditches for conveying water, and which he 

 had seen used in Egj^pt, appeared to him more suitable 

 to the wants of agriculture. Perhaps the instrument 

 of M. Pallissard will be preferable and econom.ical in 

 the great public works of bridges and roads." 



The ravale referred to seems to be similar to the 

 mouldebaert of Flanders, or the scraper of this country^ 

 which is made much use of in the Northern States, but 

 is scarcely known, and seldom used, in the South. In 

 a subsequent number of the Annales a plate and de- 

 scription of M. Palissard's trumbril are given. It is a 

 scraper with w^heels. 



The next extracts are specimens of the manner in 

 which the elections of corresponding members arc 

 announced. The claims to the honor are seldom so 

 strong as these — but in every case, (here is attached to 



the name, some circumstances relating to the condition 

 of the member elect, which may be supposed to fur- 

 nish the ground for his being chosen. 



January Sih, 1S34. — "The society proceeded to ex- 

 amine the titles of canditatcs proposed in the sittings 

 of preceding years to be named as correspondents of 

 the society, conformably to the ordinance of the King, 

 which has authorised the society to incrtase the num- 

 ber to three hundred. 



Correspondents appointed — 



For the Department of the North. M. Alexandre 

 Coget, member of the Chamber of Deputies, cultivator 

 of nis own land in the arrondissement of Lille, and 

 who belongs to a famil> which, for three generations, 

 has been distinguished for having fine orchards and 

 plantations. 



M. Debuyser, proprietor, director for the 



last twenty-five years of the French moeres, vast 

 marshes whicli he "lias taken from the dominion of the 

 waters, to convert them to fields and fertile meadows. 



For IMayeme. M. Leon Leclerc, proprietor and ex- 

 tensive planter, [of trees] who possesses the most com- 

 plete collection of fruit trees which exists in France." 



January 22nd, 1834. — "Memoirs and notices ad- 

 dressed to tl;e society— from M. Bacon, on the duration 

 of leaves in Normandy — from M. Pierard upon plan- 

 tations (of trees) on bad and shallow soils — and from 

 M. Marcellin Vetillart, relative to grafts upon roots. 

 All received to be read. 



M. Payen announces that M. Champerois has dis- 

 covered the means of condensing, by a very simple 

 apparatus, the gases which escape from the carboniza- 

 tion of bones; that this condensation is made in very 

 mellow earth, which, without the least doubt, must be- 

 come by this operation a very good manure." 



February 5//;, 1S34.— "M. de Galbois, in a letter,, 

 announces that the black pyritous ashes prepared in 

 this department, are mere and more in demand for 

 manure, in that of the North — and that the consump- 

 tion of the last year has exceeded 200,000 hectolitres. 

 This substance, "taken on the ground, may be delivered 

 at the rate of 50 centimes the hectolitre, weighing 

 about 200 lbs. Afterwards, M. de Galbois gives an 

 account of the labor expended on the Artesian Well of 

 Montreuil-sous-Laon, which has already descended 

 816 feet below the soil, of which 770 are in a bed of 

 chalk, without yet reaching water to burst up: never- 

 theless the boring is continued." 



The manure here referred to must be of a kind simi- 

 lar to the cendrcs de mer, or Dutch ashes, the value and 

 elTects of which have been described at large in several 

 ! preceding numbers of the Farmers' Register. 



February I9th, 1834. — "M. le Compte de Montlosier 

 addresses to the society a memoir relative to the scar- 

 city of manure [barn-yard] in France, and the means 

 for remedy of the evil". Ordered to be printed. 



M. Souiange Bodin communicates new documents 

 upon the extension of the cultivation of the Morus 

 Multicaulis [or Chinese mulberry.] It appears from 

 a notice printed at Boston, and ol whicli M. Soulonge 

 placed a copy on the table, that this tree is actually 

 employed for the feeding of silkworms, both m the 

 neighborhood of that city and of New York, where it 

 has resisted the most rigorous cold of the winters. 

 Near Venice there have been made experiments and 

 observations preserved in a memoir addressed by ]M. 

 Maupoil, who cultivates it largely on the Brenta. 

 There have been obtained from sowing the seed, by 

 this cultivator, a great number of varieties, which ap- 

 pear generally to approach to the white mulberr}'; 

 which tends to prove that the first [the Chinese] is not 

 a distinct species, but, as a valuable variety, cannot be 

 preserved except by multiplyinp; it by cuttings, grafts, 

 or layers. It appears indeed that it is exclusively by 



