2G 
The Prize Farms of France. 
and fern — because, even after grubbing and burning, the promise 
of a slender crop of rye was baulked by winter frosts — these 
were the leading features of the new take ; with a few clumsy 
implements, some half-starved cattle, a short supply of the worst 
of stover — the bare bones of the outgoing tenant's substance — for 
a stock-in-trade. The best gauge of this penury will be found 
in the current price of the land to buy or hire. Mr. Marechal 
Galle, one competitor, bought lands at an average price of 
21. 12s. per acre ; " they are now classed amongst those for 
which the general price is 32/." I give this verbatim, because 
this classing imply taxinq — a searching test of improved 
value. Or, again, the farm of M. Gossin, 220 acres, had been 
let for 40/., and at the termination of the lease the tenant only 
offered 24Z., which was declined ; in another instance the two 
last tenants bolted. 
The course to be pursued was generally the same : first, 
drainage, arterial or field ; then deep cultivation to break the 
face, such as " Talpa," likewise a proprietor, depicts ; then 
liming ; then the careful collection of vegetable matter of all 
kinds for compost ; when in time clover and roots followed corn, 
some accommodation for stock ; and, lastly — to our shame, who 
have had so much better a start in a milder climate ! — the 
application of the drainage waters from above to irrigation 
below. 
This was a work specially adapted to proprietors of moderate 
means : they were constrained to make the best of that property 
which was their sole means of subsistence, whilst the nature 
of the work, the state of their finances, the hazardous question, 
" will it pay ?" — all pointed to a commencement on a small scale ; 
the economy of the process being tested by the growth of the 
means for its gradual development. A tenant would have hesi- 
tated to saddle himself with a tract of bad land, when he was 
only prepared to deal at first somewhat diffidently with a small 
part of it. 
But if the position of the competitors was similar, their ante- 
cedents were various. In one instance the owner, M. (lossin, a 
public functionary, sent his two sons to the Agricultural College at 
Grignon, and then turned them loose on the farm, now comprising 
350 acres, to bear the grins and gibes of their neighbours ; till 
unremitting toil, intelligently applied, compensating for lack of 
capital and experience, won them their " footing," and enrolled 
them among the farming celebrities of the country. One son is 
now a Professor of Agriculture, and he has been well schooled. 
The other holds the land ; cultivates it with the improved imple- 
ments which he saw at College ; has laid dry the swamps ; tile- 
drained much of the land, planting some parts that he might 
