Small Holdings in France. 
613 
In what manner, or by what means, can the introduction of new 
species be hastened 1 
The great amount of un-coordinated work which has been done 
and is now in hand in the direction of bringing in new plants has 
hardly yet been appreciated. 
The competition between the importers of new plants is so great 
both in the Old World and the New that a very large proportion of 
the species which would naturally commend themselves for the use 
of florists, for the adornment of greenhouses, or for commercial ends, 
have been at one time or another brought before the public or are 
being accumulated in stock. The same is true, although to a less 
extent, with regard to useful vegetables and fruit. Hardly one of 
those which we can suggest as desirable for trial has not already 
been investigated in Europe or in the United States, and reported on. 
The pages of our chemical, pharmaceutical, medical, horticultural, 
agricultural and trade journals, especially those of high grade, contain 
a wealth of material of this character. 
But what is needed is this : that the promising plants should be 
systematically investigated under exhaustive conditions. It is not 
enough that an enthusiast here, or an amateur there, should give a 
plant a trial under imperfectly understood conditions, and then 
report success or failure. The work should be thorough, and every 
question answered categorically, so that we might be placed in pos- 
session of all the facts relative to the object experimented upon. 
But such an undertaking requires the co-operation of many different 
agencies, such as botanic gardens, museums and laboratories, and 
experiment stations. 
By these agencies, wisely directed and energetically employed, 
the domains of commercial and industrial botany will be enlarged. 
It is to some of the possible results in these domains that attention 
has been directed. 
G. L. Goodale. 
SMALL HOLDINGS IN FRANCE. 
At the present time, when the question of Small Holdings has been 
brought prominently before the country, it must be desirable to 
borrow all the light we can get thrown on the subject from the ex- 
perience of other countries, which have continually retained a system 
which is now the subject of an experimental revival in Great Britain. 
If any useful deductions are to be drawn from the working of Small 
Holdings abroad, it is obvious that the region selected must not 
differ widely in point of climate from the country bounding the 
English side of the Channel. 
For the above reason mainly I determined to concentrate an 
investigation which I recently made on a limited area of Picardy, 
having Amiens for its centre — a district of all others the most acces- 
sible to Englishmen, but nevertheless economically little known to 
our countrymen, who annually rush through it by thousands. 
