320 
A RUSTIC POULTRY HOUSE, ETC. 
MARSHALL BUG-EAUD, DUKE OF ISLY, AS A 
FARMER. 
Among the victims of cholera at Paris, in the 
month of June last, says a correspondent of the 
Observer, was the celebrated soldier whose name 
heads this article. Of his military and political 
achievements it is not our province to speak in these 
pages; but it is of his efforts in the improvement 
of agriculture at his country seat, between Limon- 
sin and Perigord. Here he set an example worthy 
of all praise, and one which we regret to say is not 
oftener followed by heroes and politicians. 
The canton where he lived, was one of the poor¬ 
est and most backward regions in France. The 
peasantry were ill-educated, averse to all innovation 
upon old modes of farming, and their fields did not 
yield half what they ought to produce. Marshall 
Bugeaud undertook to effect a revolution in the 
agriculture of his province. He met at first with 
great difficulties. His neighbors laughed at him. 
and said that with his whimsies he would reduce 
himself to beggary. His own domestics resisted 
slily his orders. Every body called him a wild 
schemer; however, the Marshall stood firm. He 
even put his own hand to implements of agricul¬ 
ture ; he learnt to handle the hoe and the plow. 
He was the first up in the morning, and the last to 
retire at night; he led, and encouraged his servants, 
and his manly perseverance triumphed at last over 
all obstacles. He introduced into his domains the 
use of new plows, and other valuable inventions. 
Far from being ruined, as his neighbors thought, 
he soon doubled his property , and then he had 
many imitators. In short, his example worked 
wonders, and at the end of a few years, this canton 
had completely changed its face. 
Marshall Bugeaud, throughout the whole course 
of his military career, always preserved a decided 
taste for agriculture. He loved to converse with 
the peasants, and he gave them good advice. He 
thought, and rightly, I believe, that it would be 
happy for France if a part of the laboring popula¬ 
tion that encumber the large towns would turn their 
attention to agricultural pursuits. “ I sigh,” he 
says in one of his pamphlets, addressed to the peo¬ 
ple, “when I see in our cities such crowds of peo¬ 
ple walking about doing nothing, while the fields 
lack laborers. Many useful things are not done. 
There is* a rich mine to work, and the labor would 
conduce to the morality of the nation. The pea¬ 
sant, in times of national trouble, does not suffer 
famine ; he sows his grain, he has always a bit of 
bread, and can wait till quiet is restored. The 
workman in the factory, on the contrary, when 
labor is stopped by political revolutions, falls imme¬ 
diately into want and idleness. Then intriguing, 
ambitious men seize upon him, inflame his pas¬ 
sions, impel him to engage in mobs, to spill his 
blood to feed their ambition. Oh! detestable 
deceivers of the people, how worthy of contempt 
ye are.” 
This was a fixed opinion of the illustrious Mar¬ 
shall. He repeated constantly, and to the end of 
his life, that the only effectual means to restore the 
public tranquility, was to diminish the laboring 
class in cities, and to increase it in the country. 
But it is easier said than done. How can the 
workmen in factories be induced to quit their shops 
in order to lead the hard life of farmers’? They 
lack the physical force, the taste, capital, and 
skill; and they prefer to suffer in our cities, rather 
than to go in the heat of the sun and gather the 
harvest. 
A RUSTIC POULTRY HOUSE. 
The poultry house described in your September 
number being rather expensive for many people, I 
send a sketch, which certainly has the merit of 
cheapness, if nothing else to recommend it. I no¬ 
tice in almost every country town I travel through, 
miserable, patched-up, unsightly hovels, occupied 
as the home for our domestic fowls, though I should 
think, from their filthy appearance generally, that 
they were not fit for the pigs to live in. I think this 
displays very little taste, especially when we con¬ 
sider that, with the same labor and materials, expend¬ 
ed in a different manner, in “ rustic work,” for in¬ 
stance, a structure might be made, that would per¬ 
haps be rather ornamental than otherwise, certainly 
Rustic Poultry House.—Fig. 83. 
not disgraceful, and at the same time be as conve¬ 
nient and useful. This kind of work can easily 
be made by any person accustomed to the use of 
the saw and axe: All that is required is a little 
taste, having your plan well digested before com¬ 
mencing, so as to require no alterations. 
For the construction of a piece of rustic work 
like fig. 83, after selecting the situation, join four 
pieces of saplings in an oblong shape for the sills; 
confine them to the ground ; erect at the middle of 
each of the two ends a forked post, of suitable 
height, in order to make the sides quite steep; join 
these with a ridge pole; rough-board it from the 
apex downward by the sills to the ground ; then 
cover it with bark, roughly cut in pieces a foot 
square, laid on and confined in the same manner as 
ordinary shingles; fix the back end in the same 
way ; and the front can be latticed with little poles 
with the bark on, arranged diamond fashion, as 
shown in the sketch—a part to be made with 
hinges for a door. 
Something after this style, placed on the bank of 
a small stream, and half covered with climbing 
plants, would make a very pretty home for aquatic 
fowls. J. B. D. 
Boston , September , 1849. 
