290 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



ill turn, from their niches, and each strikes the quarter hours 

 upon a bell, with a hammer which he holds in his hand. A 

 little door opens and a strange procession files out, turning in 

 a half circle around the base of the clock, and entering another 

 door just as the last stroke of the bell is sounded. 



Farther down the street, near the banks of the river, live 

 bears are kept in pens, at the expense of the city. There were 

 two old ones of enormous size in one apartment, and four young 

 ones in another. They furnished a constant source of amuse- 

 ment to old and young. Not long ago an Englishman fell down 

 into the pen, when the bears immediately attacked him. A 

 great cry was immediately raised, and the gens d'armes were 

 very soon at hand, but as they refused to fire upon the bears, 

 the poor Englishman was killed before he could be rescued. 

 His friends immediately came over to complain that he was not 

 saved, and when the gens d'armes were asked why they did not 

 shoot the bears, and thus save his life, they replied that " Eng- 

 lishmen were too plenty already, but bears were getting mighty 

 scarce." 



The characteristic of Swiss farming may be said to be extreme 

 care in minute details. Every ounce of manure is saved and 

 piled up for a compost, often right in front of the house, where 

 it receives a thousand waste substances from the kitchen. 

 Nothing is lost that can add to the fertility of the soil and 

 increase the crops. Children perambulate the streets to pick 

 up all the manure they can find. Then irrigation is pretty 

 extensively applied wherever it is practicable. It was practiced 

 in Switzerland as early as the fourteenth century. I saw many 

 instances of it. Some of the irrigated meadows are very pro- 

 ductive, generally producing two crops of hay in addition to an 

 early cutting of grass, often as early as April, to feed out to 

 cows, mixed with dry hay. The first hay crop is cut the last 

 of May or the first of June, the second in August, and tlic 

 grass is cut the fourth time at the end of September or in 

 October. I saw it cut in innumerable instances late in Septem- 

 ber, when it was, I should think, not over four or five inches 

 liigh. The water is let on usually in March, and allowed to 

 flow over the land two or three days, when it is turned off to 

 irrigate some other piece, and after a week or fortnight, accord- 

 ing to the looks of the grass, it is again turned upon the first 



