286 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



of clover and roots for stock, and finally the application of 

 drainage waters for irrigation. 



One competitor, M. Gossin, had 220 acres which had been 

 under a lease for $200, and at the end of the lease, the tenant 

 offering but f 120, it was refused, when the owner, who had 

 sent his two sons to the Agricultural College at Grignon, turned 

 them upon the farm, after increasing it to 350 acres, where they 

 were subjected to the jokes and ridicule of their neighbors. It 

 was a " hard row to hoe," but by constant toil and the applica- 

 tion of the knowledge and principles they had acquired, and 

 which compensated in part for lack of capital and experience, 

 they conquered circumstances, came out victorious, and found 

 their neighbors laughing from the other side of the mouth. 

 One of these sons is now a professor of agriculture and the 

 other still sticks to the farm, using the improved implements 

 which he got the hang of at college, laying dry swamps, tile 

 draining piece after piece, which the brothers together had 

 not completed, planting some parts to forest trees, and making 

 model roads, and keeping clear and accurate accounts. 

 " Accounts are a necessary check which never mislead." 



Another competitor, to whom a gold medal was awarded for 

 improvements in drainage, had a special difficulty to contend 

 with, the choking of his pipes by a crust of oxide of iron, which 

 he got over by scouring out the drains, from time to time, by 

 means of a swift current of water from above. He had laid 

 97,000 pipes on 72 acres, at a cost of $19 an acre, including 

 every thing. He uses all the drainage water to irrigate lower 

 lying lands. He has brought up his live stock to a value of 

 $4,300. His grain, stover and roots were estimated at $1,400. 

 His implements at $900. The farm consists of 225 acres. 



I might enlarge upon the means adopted in France for the 

 encouragement of agriculture, through numerous societies and 

 otherwise, but the foregoing will serve to show tliat they are of 

 various kinds, as they are, no doubt, of various degrees of 

 efficiency. They teach the young in a widely extended system 

 of agricultural schools ; they encourage the most expensive 

 scientific experiments ; they offer liberal prizes for the best 

 managed farms ; they publish public documents which throw 

 our Patent Office Reports far into the shade, and adopt many 

 other modes of stimulating competition and inquiry. 



