1-40 REVIEWS AGBICULTUBE OF THE TRENCH EXHIBITION. 



REVIEWS. 



The Agriculture of the French Exhibition. By John "Wilson, F.E.S. 

 E., E.Gr.S., &c, Professor of Agriculture in the University of 

 Edinburgh. Edinburgh : Adam & Cbarles Black. 1856. 



The grand conception, which originated, we believe, with Prince 

 Albert, of inviting all the civilized nations of the world to bring to 

 one centre their various characteristic productions from the wide 

 domains of nature and art, has already been productive of extensive 

 and beneficial results. The great Exhibitions of London and Paris 

 have now become matters of history, and although their brief exist- 

 ence belongs to the past, the mighty impetus which they imparted to 

 the genius and industry of nations will continue to be felt to distant 

 periods of the mysterious yet hopeful future. These Exhibitions are 

 characteristic of an age of rapid progress in the useful and ornamental 

 arts, and constitute a marked epoch in the advancement of a higher 

 civilization, in which those great national, moral and social relations 

 of the race, occupy a prominent position. It may be that some of 

 these effects will not become speedily apparent ; even, perhaps, when 

 they are the most latent, they may become the silent but effectual 

 means of accomplishing ultimately the most valuable and enduring 

 improvements. The harmonising influences which such Expositions 

 exert on the different races of mankind, the prejudices they dissipate, 

 the catholicity of spirit they inspire, and the expansion of thought, 

 improvement of taste, and general elevation of the whole mind in 

 many of the best elements of progression and Christian civilization, 

 which they tend to produce, form an invaluable and much needed 

 discipline of both mind and heart, and cannot fail in the end of secu- 

 ring in the highest sense, " the greatest happiness of the greatest 

 number." 



The work which stands at the head of this article was prepared in 

 the form of a lecture, and delivered by the author to his Agricultural 

 class in the University of Edinburgh. Professor Wilson is favorably 

 known on this side of the Atlantic. He was appointed one of the 

 British Commissioners to the Xew York Industrial Exhibition in 

 1853, when he attended the Provincial Shows of both sections of this 

 Province. Canada is under great obligations to him for the interest 

 he took in our department of the London Exhibition, in 1851, and 

 the favourable disposition he has subsequently shown towards Cana- 

 dian productions, both in the Paris Exhibition, and with reference to 

 their introduction to the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. The British de- 

 partment of Agriculture in the Paris Exposition was entrusted to his 



