ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF AGRICULTURE. supplement. 



pert Id tin' profession of arms; commerce and manufacture suit only particular characters; the 

 science* and the professions onlj minds privileged by nature ; while agriculture alone offers unlimited 

 scope t"! employment ana for Improvement. M liter enlarging on this subject, the writer ?oes on to 

 state, that the business of a rarmet must no longer be thai nl men who are nol Bt for any thing i Ise ; 

 bul it must be adopted by men of education, and pursued assiduously and systematically, it appears, 

 from this and other French publications, that extraordinary exertioits an- making in 1 ranee foi the ter- 

 ritorial Improvement nl thai country, tmong other points to which the attention of the cultivator is 



directed, Is the m Ity ol his men well, no less than his borses. As a proof of the advanta 



ol doing so, it is stated that when Messrs. Manbyand \\ ilson, from Engl .ml. i itablished their iron works 

 at Charenton, the French workmen were not able to support labour for the same number of hours as 

 thel Dgl sh did, till they adopted, like them, the practice of eating butcher's meat. Exactly the i 

 tiling has been proved respecting the li i-h labourers, as compared with the English, and British soldiers, 

 as compared with those 01 other nations. 



Agricultural Societies in Prance. This, and some of the following paragraphs are taken n im 

 a very interesting article, understood to be by Professor Macculloch, which appeared in the Foreign 

 Quarterly Review, just alter the historical part of our 2d edition of this Encyclopaedia was printed. 

 •• The Igricultural Society of the Seine and Oise, which comprises many extensive landed proprietors, 

 bestows, annually, medals and prize- on the small cultivators who turn their hereditary estates to the 

 m isl profit, and upon the hired labourers and servants employed in large farms, who perform their work 

 with the greatest intelligence and fidelity. A model-farm has been lately established at Roville, in the 

 Valley of the Meurthe, about six leagues from Nancy, by M. de Dombasle, a skilful practical agricul- 

 turist. It comprises clay, sand, and gravelly soil ; and the proper modes of culture are applied to each. 

 H\ the improvements in ploughs and instruments of husbandry, live horses and nine oxen now accomplish 

 at" Roville more work than thirty-five beasts of burthen used to do on the same ground. With the aid of 

 the Scotch threshing-machine, M. de Dombasle beats out, with three horses, three hectolitres and a half 

 i upwards of an imperial quarter) of wheat, and other grain in proportion. Potatoes are cultivated « ith 

 attention, and a distillery has been established for extracting their spirit. M. de Dombasle has proved 

 w hat will, we think, excite some surprise, that land ol a middling quality, planted with potatoes for fat- 

 tening beasts, will he more productive than the richest meadow. No stronger encomium can he made on 

 the skill of M de Dombasle, than the fact that In- has more than doubled the produce of the land: the 

 average annual return of Itoville being S9 francs per hectare (of 2$ acres), while that ol" the rest of the 

 department of the Meurthe is but 2--J francs per hectare. At Moncey. in the department of the Moselle, 

 the model-farm of M. Bouchotte is famous for its breed of horses." {For. Quart. Rev.) 



7987. " The Agricultural Society qf Strasbourg in 1828 commenced an experimental plantation of fruit 

 and forest trees in Alsace; a want observable not merely in that department, but throughout the whole 

 country, except, perhaps, Normandy and parts of Britany. In Franche-Comte, and the department of 

 Doubs, the government has taken the breeding of cattle under its pectdiar care, and established annual 

 exhibitions and prizes. In these parts, as also in Montbeliard, the useless practice of feeding oil the land 

 i. beginning to be discontinued, it being ascertained that a hectare of inclosed ground produces one third 

 more if not subjected to this ceremony. The arrondissement of Montbeliard has abandoned the system 

 of fallows in use in the rest of the department, and cultivates with success both flax and the turnip. In 

 Franche-Comte the very beggars are becoming industrious; they go about collecting manure till they 

 have accumulated a certain quantity, when they take it to a proprietor, who allows them in return to 

 plant on his soil, and receive the crop of a proportionate number of potatoes. In Picardy, the increase 

 of the sheep-Hocks, and the improved system of manuring, have added to the fertility of the soil. At 

 Nouvison, in the department of the Aisne, the farms have been ornamented by hedges and plantations, 

 in imitation of the adjoining country of Hainault. It is here that the making of sabots, and woode I 

 Utensils called bois-jolis, is chiefly carried on; the supply sent to Paris annually is valued at 17,000/. 

 At Origny, in the neighbourhood of Vervins, the children of the husbandmen are employed in fan- 

 making, baskets, &c. Of willow, to the value of 10,000/. per annum. In Champagne, the example of 

 M. Richardot, a small proprietor, has given an impulse to planting, and to a systematic irrigation of the 

 land." (Ibid) 



7988. — 3!'0 & 414. " The culture of the vine is a department of their husbandry of which the French 

 have, perhaps, a right to boast more than any oth r people. The same grape, when tried in countries 

 under the same latitude as the south of France, has never been brought to an equal degree of perfection. 

 'I he plantations of vines have been and are subject to severe discouragements, but have, nevertheless, 

 increased very considerable over their extent in 17^0. In that year their surface was estimated at 1,200,01 

 hectares of land ; in !-()•<, 'it amounted to 1,600,000 ; and in 1824, it covered 1,7-28.000 hectares. In 182S, 

 the vine, occupied about ■.'.mio.ihki cultivators, and their annual produce was computed at 40,000.000 

 hectolitres ; the value of which, at fifteen francs per hectolitre, is (i00,000,000 francs, or about 24,000,000/. 

 sterling English money." (Ibid.) 



7989 —391. The olive climate. Strabo (lib. iv.) says, that the line of the Cevennes, in Gallia Narbo- 

 nensis, was the northern limit, beyond which the • Old previ nted the growth of the olive. The limit is 

 still in the same position. (Jameson's Jour., April, 1834, p, 233.) 



7990. — :t0K & 399. The breed of cattle and sheep in France, " with the exception of parts of French 

 Klamlcrs. Noi mainly, and Alsace, is yet very degenerate. But their improvement, like that of mankind, 

 depends upon their rearing; and, if the example of the Roville and other studs be followed, there seems 

 no reason to doubt that the French horses may one day equal those of England or Spain. The company 

 lately formed for recovering the 4,000,(100 hectares of marsh land now uncultivated, and converting them 

 into pasture, will greatly further the amelioration of the cattle, as well as the augmentation of their 



mo -rs. 2,500,000 horses, 7,000,000 fa d cattle, and 42,000,000 sheep and goats, are certainly not 



a large stock for a country covering 53,500,000 hectares of land. The most experienced of the agricul- 

 turists have shown that the fleeces may be brought to almost any desired degree of perfection When 

 the merino- of Spain first appeared in France, the partisans of the coarse mattress-wool were continually 

 alleging that Spanish Sheep would never thrive in the French climate; their siiccc s has. however, been 

 complete. The celebrated M. I'eruaux (deceased in 1832) imported wools of what are called the electoral 

 race, and placed the goats of Thibet in his park of St. Ouen, near Paris. The rugged declivities of the 

 Jura have been adorned with the magnificent naz breed of MM- Girod and Perrault, and their rams 

 are now attesting in New Holland the march of science in the management of Hocks in France." (For. 

 Quar. Rev.) 



7'.''.'1 . — 403. " The French pigs, although they have excited many facetious Observations from travellers, 

 and have not unfrequentlj been compared to greyhounds, may be fattened, we are assured, at a small 

 expense; and the raethi d of doing tins i- now beginning to be better understood. The Chinese and 

 I i ;lish brci ds are also getting into use for crossing. The fact that 4. linn, nun pigs are killed yearly in 

 France, shows of how great importance they are to tin' small agriculturist." (Ibid.) 



79'.12. — 407. The most extensive of the brunches of French agriculture, as connected With the manufac- 

 tures, " are the culture of beet-root for sugar ; of Oleaginous plants, particulai ly at Lille and Dijon : and 

 of the mulberry for silk-worms, in Languedoc and the southern provinces. It has been the habit in 

 England to consider the former of these as merely a fanciful amusement of national vanity ; but it 

 appears by the amount of its consumption ( between 7.000,000 and 8,000.000 lbs. a year), that at all events 

 it is become an article of some practical magnitude." (Ibid.) The process of obtaining sugar from the 

 root has been given in all its details, with a view to adopting the practice in Britain, in the Brit. 

 Farm. Mag., vols. x. J* xi. for I8:i<'. & 1*37 . 



