The Contest in the Loiret. 
19 
powers, viz. : — " That !M. Dargent be promoted to the rank of 
Officer in the Legion of Honour, of which he has been for eighteen 
years a Companion ; that ]M. Lange be made a Companion of the 
Legion. That tlae prize arid the cup be assigned to Madame 
Rocquigny and her sons." But their award is — the prize to 
M. Dargent ; and gold medals to Messrs. Rocquigny, for their 
accounts and their distillery ; to M. Lange, for liis excellent 
rotation, which is productive of increasing fertility, and for his 
drill husbandry ; to AL Papin, as the introducer of beet-culture 
on a large scale ; to M. Aubry, for the improvements effected in 
his flock by judicious cross-breeding; to M. Dubosc, for his 
buildings, and the service rendered to cattle breeders by his 
excellent bulls ; to Count Malartic, for his good example in 
erecting a distillery, his drill husbandry, his Atkin's reaper, and 
good threshing-machines ; to I\L Burel, for his improved cow- 
houses ; to M. Basset, for his zeal in introducing the drill, for 
his buildings, and the good management of his manure. 
This account has run to some length ; but if more compressed 
it would hardly have shown either the working of this mag- 
nificent prize under favourable circumstances, or the condition 
of agriculture in a thriving but not a pre-eminent district. The 
manner in which it brought into notice and rewarded modest, 
persevering worth, cannot but be hailed with extreme satisfaction 
by all the friends of the genuine farmer. 
The Loiret, 
Let us next take a glance at the contest of the Loiret, where we 
shall find the race nearly reduced to a match between two gen- 
tlemen of good property and of great distinction as agriculturists. 
The improvement of wastes by plantations on a large scale is here 
exhibited alongside of the valuable industrial crops which test 
and tax the fertility of the rich alluvial lands bordering on the 
Loire : yet in the background we have " the Sologne," a name 
suggestive of all the ills attendant on poor, cold, wet, isolated dis- 
tricts of sand and clay. 
Of the farm of Chenaille, the property of M. Bobee, who ran 
a very good second, we have no detailed report. The property is 
large, 4500 acres. A completely new face has been put upon that 
and adjoining estates by M. Bobee's example during forty years. 
The miserable metayer, or half-holder,* who had to be supplied 
with stock is superseded by a tenantry holding leases of eighteen 
* The name metayer is hardly familiar to all readers ; it applies to an occupier 
yho IS supplied with chief part of the stock, live and dead, on condition of render- 
ing to the landlord half the produce. The English -n ord " half-holder " will suff- 
gest Its own import. 
c 2 
