234 CHYMISTRY APPLIED TO AGRICULTURE. 



the Minister of the Interior should make the rules necessary 

 for securing their execution in every particular. 



I have no doubt that these two establishments would 

 produce, in a few years, the best effects upon French ag- 

 riculture. The pupils who left these schools would diffuse 

 everywhere instruction and good methods of cultivation, 

 and the first of arts would no longer depend for preserva- 

 tion on a mere routine, which perpetuates errors and pre- 

 judices. 



In establishing these two schools, the government will 

 have fulfilled only one part of its duties to agriculture ; it 

 owes it roads and canals to facilitate the transportation of 

 commodities ; it owes it a wise regulation of taxes, so that 

 they may never represent a single part only of the benefit 

 derived from agricultural operations ; it ow^es it a kind and 

 paternal administration; it owes it assistance when acci' 

 dental casualties ox diseases \idi\Q ravaged crops and destroyed 

 cattle. 



And even in this, the government has not yet fulfilled 

 all its duties to agriculture, to their full extent ; it should 

 excite emulation, w^hich, in the arts, works miracles, and 

 should reward agriculturists who make important discove- 

 ries, and those who improve or extend useful methods of 

 cultivation. 



These pecuniary encouragements should not be distributed 

 at random, nor badly bestowed, for they would then extin- 

 guish emulation in place of rousing it. 



A well-selected jury should designate, every year, to the 

 authorities, those cultivators of the department who have de- 

 served best of agriculture ; and the distribution of prizes 

 should be made in a public and solemn sitting. 



The object of the examinations of the jury should be to 

 determine who are those agriculturists who have introduced 

 upon their estates animals more valuable and more useful 

 than those of the country, and those who have improved the 

 native breeds ; 



Those who have established the system of cropping most 

 favorable to the soil ; 



Those who have discovered modes of manuring and im- 

 proving the soil, before unknown .or not used ; 



Those who have planted the largest number of trees ; 



Those who have opened to culture lands hitherto barren ; 



Those who have introduced the cultivation of plants, the 

 produce of which is more profitable than that of those usual- 

 ly raised ; 



