AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 249 



FOOD CRISIS IN FRANCE. 



" Happy is that nation which has a ruler or a minister who lias 

 the talent and will to discover the root of the national difficulty, 

 and the remedy, and apply it. Mons. Fould, the confidential 

 adviser of Napoleon, is now busy in examining the causes of dearth 

 in the south of France, especially, where in whole districts a true 

 plow is utterly unknown, where the soil is merely scratched with 

 a pole, to which a bit of wood, pointed with iron, is attached, at 

 an angle of forty-five degrees. The coulter belongs to another 

 hob. It is a wooden peg, drawn like the aforesaid plough, by 

 two oxen. The plowman guiding one team with his riglit, and 

 the other with his left hand. Everywhere noxious weeds abound 

 in full liberty. Full one-third of the grain crop of France is 

 destroyed by the weeds. Drainage is yet all theory. But look 

 at the agricultural colleges, model farms, and farming schools 

 there; the public shows, the great ones of Paris, the premiums j 

 all, all worthy of praise, but of little or no good. They are reme- 

 dies applied at the wrong end. The late grant by government of 

 100,000,000 francs for drainage, hits the evil in the right spot. 

 The government is on the right track, by developing the vast 

 resources lying beneath the weedy surface of her rich champaign, 

 her multitudes will cease to hunger, and there will be prosperity 

 at home." 



[London Farmers' Magazine, April, 1857.] 



THE THREATENED APPROACH OF THE MURRAIN. 



There is nothing the agriculturist hears with so much alarm 

 as the rumored outbreak of murrain or cattle disease. In this 

 age especially, when the stock of the farmer is becoming more 

 and more valuable. The murrain is now^ I'aging with fearful severity 

 in those States with which we are in direct or continual communi- 

 cation. It pervades with more or less intensity many parts of 

 central Europe, from whence we continue to receive our custo- 

 mary importation of cattle. One animal has been condemned 

 here already, and one of a whole head may easily carry the germ 

 of the disease. Our government seems to have done nothing, 

 while other States have taken keen and active measures. Al- 

 most every fatal c<ittle plague here has been imported. 



