OF AGRICULTURE. 131 



be our ideal ; neither he nor his system of 

 agriculture. Our ambition is, that he should 

 produce even more than he does with less 

 labour, and should enjoy all the joys of human 

 life. And this is fully possible. 



As a matter of fact, if we put aside those 

 gardeners who chiefly cultivate the so-called 

 primeurs strawberries ripened in January, and 

 the like if we take only those who grow their 

 crops in the open field, and resort to frames 

 exclusively for the earlier days of the life of 

 the plant, and if we analyse their system, we see 

 that its very essence is, first, to create for the 

 plant a nutritive and porous soil, which con- 

 tains both the necessary decaying organic 

 matter and the inorganic compounds ; and then 

 to keep that soil and the surrounding atmos- 

 phere at a temperature and moisture superior to 

 those of the open air. The whole system is 

 summed up hi these few words. If the French 

 maraicher spends prodigies of labour, intelli- 

 gence, and imagination hi combining different 

 kinds of manure, so as to make them ferment 

 at a given speed, he does so for no purpose but 

 the above : a nourishing soil, and a desired 

 equal temperature and moisture of the air and 

 the soil. All his empirical art is devoted to the 

 achievement of these two aims. But both can 

 also be achieved in another and much easier 



