12 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Jan. 
the chief value of a guano, and the source of its 
characteristic qualities ; 66 per cent of the above is 
sand and water. It is not likely to be a refuse, as 
it would be quite valuable in its present state for the 
purpose of manufacturing alum, and a person who 
had intended to palm off a spurious composition upon 
the public, would scarcely send it for analysis. As 
yet no clue has been obtained to the manner of its for¬ 
mation. In appearance it is not unlike some of the 
Peruvian guano, and farmers will do well to be on their 
guard while such worthless compounds are in the mar¬ 
ket. 
I leave for Holland in a few days, to study for a year 
in the laboratory of Prof. Mulder, one of the greatest 
physiologists and chemists of the present day. I shall 
endeavor from time to time, during my stay there, to 
communicate such experiments in the laboratory, or ac¬ 
counts of Dutch farming, as may seem likely to interest 
your readers. Yours, truly, John P. Norton. 
RURAL NOTICES ABROAD. 
Royal Veterinary School at Alfort. —Among 
the few objects which have interest for an agricultural 
eye, in Paris, or its vicinity, is the Royal Veterinary 
School of Alfort, distant some five or six miles from the 
capital. The name only partially explains its object ; 
which is, a treatment of diseases in all the domestic ani¬ 
mals, a study of the causes of such diseases, and means 
of prevention. The buildings, like all public buildings 
in France, are large, substantial and elegant. They 
are arranged nearly in the form of a square, consisting 
of stables, amphitheatre, lodges, lecture rooms, with 
conveniences for some three hundred pupils, beside a 
large number of professors. Students are admitted at 
a charge of something less than four hundred francs per 
annum, including board and tuition. A few are admit¬ 
ted gratuitously upon the recommendation of the minis¬ 
ter of Agriculture ; beside forty named by the Minister 
of War, for veterinary service in the cavalry. 
The stables are arranged with admirable method and 
neatness ; every stall numbered and ticketed with the 
disease under which the animal is suffering, and the 
date of its entrance. It of course serves as the regu¬ 
lar hospital for the horses of the cavalry, beside which, 
any person is at liberty to place a sick animal in the 
establishment, at a certain fixed but low rate per diem. 
Slaughter of incurable cases is not uncommon, and a 
dissection of the subject in presence of the school. 
At the time of my visit to Alfort, a horse sick with 
the glanders, was tied in the amphitheatre for slaughter 
and dissection the following day. Before I left Paris, 
I learned that one of the students engaged in the dis¬ 
section, had accidentally cut himself during the opera¬ 
tion. This is at all times regarded as dangerous, and 
particularly so in the case of an animal laboring under 
this disease. The most prompt medical treatment was 
resorted to ; but the poor fellow suffered intensely for 
several days, and finally died. 
Cows are received, and fed without charge ; the es¬ 
tablishment availing itself of the profits of the dairy, 
and reserving the liberty of practising occasional expe¬ 
riments in way of food, and habits of life. Sheep are 
received and fed upon the same conditions ; swine are 
kept ; and there is a minor establishment in connection 
with the larger for the treatment of sick dogs : we saw 
one little wiry haired terrier, howling about his double 
barred cage, in the incipient stages of madness. Nor 
did it heighten our sympathy for the little wffielp, snap¬ 
ping at us through the bars, when the keeper told us 
that it had been a very quiet dog, before his inoculation 
with the disease. 
A botanic garden forms part of the attachments, and 
a miniature park for the recreation of the pupils. These 
things together, make up an institution, which is an 
honor to the country and which, for tne present. a$ 
least, we must content ourselves with admiring, without 
imitating. For if tried by the test, to which every 
thing of a public nature must be submitted in our coun¬ 
try, it will be found that the veterinary school, like the 
garden of the Tuilleries, and the fountains of Versailles 
does not pay. That is to say, receipts in money do not 
balance the outlay of money. Whether increased inqui¬ 
ry, and stimulus to inquiry, do not more than make up 
the deficit on the balance sheets, is a way of consider¬ 
ing the question, too heretical to be for a moment in¬ 
dulged in. 
Agricultural Implements of France. —Just out 
of the Rue St. Martin, one of the noisiest streets in 
Paris, is an old religious house, turned into a conserva¬ 
toire of models of all useful machinery and agricultural 
implements. The French are not pre-eminent in this 
way : I fancy our paper-making, cloth-weaving, and 
board-sawing apparatus, (certainly in point of cheap, 
ness and ingenuity of contrivance.) would no way suffer 
by comparison with the beautifully arranged collection 
of the Rue St. Martin. Indeed the best models of the 
collection are of English origin, and English machinery 
and machinists are found in every city of France. One 
finds English engineers upon the boats of all their rivers, 
and is dragged by English locomotives along their rail¬ 
ways. Only until recently have they been manufac¬ 
tured at all in France, and though showy in appear¬ 
ance, they are by no means equal to the English, in 
power or capacity for speed. 
However this may be, our implements of Agricul¬ 
ture are nearly twenty years in advance of what may 
be seen at the Conservatoire. The more common hand 
instruments are of the most rude and clumsy construc¬ 
tion ; and plows, multiplied into every imaginable va¬ 
riety of shape and bearing, are totally eclipsed by a neat 
little American fabric which holds an obscure place in 
the collection. What would New-York farmers think 
of seeing a pitch fork with wooden tines, ticketed 
among the resources of modern agricultural art ? and 
a hay rake, such as a “ cute” country boy could make 
on a rainy day, with his jackknife and knee for lathe, 
and his thumb and fore finger for compass—displayed 
in the great Conservatoire of Paris ! It is singular that 
a nation so nice and thorough in the more difficult 
scientific inquiries, should be so lacking in the more 
practical means of advancing their national interests. 
French scientific men have contrived most admirable 
means for boring the earth to the depth of sixteen hun¬ 
dred feet for water f yet, for boring the earth only to 
the depth of a few inches, for bread.—the means are 
as paltry as any in the world. 
Various ingenious devices found place in the collec¬ 
tion, for drawing water, for shelling corn, and for 
cleaning wheat; but nothing essentially new. The 
scarifiers and harrows were more complicated, without 
appearing to be more effective than the American im¬ 
plements for similar purposes. It will afford good 
illustration of the lack of adaptation in the most com¬ 
mon works of French craftsmen, when I tell you that 
there is not a window fastening in Paris, which would 
not furnish metal enough properly distributed, for a set 
of twenty-five in America ; nor is there a pair of tongs, 
even in the palace of the Tuilleries, which would not 
make one of our Dutch housewives as sour as her 
pickled cabbage. No nation of Europe is so destitute of 
* The reader will recur at once to the famous well of Grenelle 
in the immediate neighborhood of Paris :—a well which has been 
sunk by means of chiselling, through rock, and sand, and gravel, 
to the depth of nearly 1700 feet; and which now sends up water 
through a tube of nine or ten inches in diameter, 120 feet above 
the surface of the ground. The history of its construction, re¬ 
quiring years and years of labor, will well reward the reader’s at¬ 
tention. It may be found in any modern Encyclopaedia, under the 
head of Artesian wells—so called form Artoise, in France, being 
the district where they were lirst sunk. 
