298 
French Experimental Farm at Vaitjonrs. 
sprinjj, and, encountering the heat of summer, ljurnt up the 
cr()j)s, acting " like oil poured on a fire." When these diffi- 
culties Avere overcome, and copious diluted dressings econo- 
mically applied, the weather altered, and exuberance of growth 
only resulted in disastrous " lodgment," which damaged not 
only cereals and ra])c (grown for seed), but rotted and spoiled 
the forage crops. For such disasters in 18G0 bad luck may be- 
better pleaded than in most instances where there is a (piestion 
at issue between mishap and mismanagement. From the state 
of the roads the home-lying fields had been gorged with manure, 
the distant ones left in a state of beggary, which the recent sub- 
stitution of deep for shallow cultivation did not tend to relieve. 
The climate, too, was fickle and exceptional in this forest 
" clearing ;" the temperature being nearly 4 degrees below that 
of Paris. When the sewage, which had burnt the first crop of 
grass, told splendidly upon the second, which promised to yield 
upwards of two tons of hay per acre, it was a natural but a rash 
proceeding to make hay in October and November in this land 
of fog and mist. 
A flock of sheep was started, but showed no signs of having 
the golden hoof, for they figure in the balance-sheet of 1859 as 
responsible for a loss of 80/., and for 148/. in that of 1860 : the 
fact being that they had to be bought when all the world were 
purchasers, and sold off when others also were clearing out. 
Their winter's food, moreover, appears to have been chiefly rye- 
grass-hay and water, precisely that which Mr. Lawes apologises 
for giving experimentally, to test the animals' utmost powers of 
assimilating woody fibre, at the sacrifice of profit. Yet at this 
very same time beet was being carted for sale to factories at an 
unremunerative price ! This was running in the ruts of French 
custom, and abiding too rigidly by the sound principle that this 
farm, commanding as it does an ample supply of sewage-manure, 
should not keep back marketable produce for stock-feeding and 
conversion into manure. A prospect of an agreement for taking 
in sheep at 2fZ. per head per week, between September and 
December, appears to promise an escape from sei'ious losses. 
Amongst minor nuisances affecting the corn-crops, the rats 
figured considerably. To the forest-rat wheat was an unusual 
treat : there was no grain in the neighbourhood except in the 
lath-and-plaster barn of Vaujours. In 1858 some thousands of 
the sheaves (the last thrashed) yielded next to nothing. Cats 
have since been at a premium. 
But it would not be fair to attribute all losses to amateur or 
experimental farming. In the years 1859-1860, throughout the 
nordi of France, agriculture suffered severely, and especially in 
localities which in soil and climate resemble Vaujours. 
