23^ CHYMISTRY APPLIED TO AGRICULTURE. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE ENCOURAGEMENT WHICH OUGHT TO BE GIVEN BY THE 

 GOVERNMENT TO FRENCH AGRICULTURE. 



The very limited degree of information which, even to 

 the present day, has been diffused in the country, and the 

 almost abject part which the cultivator of the soil has been 

 made to play, have arrested the progress of agriculture 

 there ; faulty methods of cultivation have been retained, and 

 France has been far outstripped by other nations in this no- 

 ble career of public prosperity. 



Now that our institutions have replaced the most useful 

 class of men in the first rank in society, it is to be hoped 

 that the agriculturist will feel all his dignity, that he will 

 love his condition, and that, by labor and instruction, he will 

 create resources hitherto unknown to him. But this useful 

 revolution requires the support of government ; lands are too 

 much divided, the fortunes of proprietors are too limited, to 

 allow the expectation of seeing great examples and useful 

 lessons given without public assistance. 



In France, the most frivolous arts are almost everywhere 

 provided, at the cost of government, with the facilities for 

 practical instruction ; and agriculture alone is destitute of 

 a public establishment, where the principles, and practice 

 of this beautiful science may be taught. The need of 

 communicating instruction through the country is so gen- 

 erally felt, that we see, in every department, educated ag- 

 riculturists associated for the purpose of communicating 

 their observations, of discussing new processes, and of 

 proposing the improvements of which agriculture is sus- 

 ceptible. 



These associations are useful ; they render important 

 services; but they have not the advantage of forming 

 young agriculturists, nor of making them acquainted with 

 the true principles of the science. We need, for this ob- 

 ject, special instruction and men who shall be exclusively 

 devoted to it. 



In England, where rural fortunes are divided among 

 from twenty-two to twenty-five thousand families, wealthy 

 proprietors establish prizes, of which they make a formal 

 distribution every year. They assemble within their do- 

 mains, upon a fixed day, a considerable number of agricul- 



