204 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
June, 
Notes of a Tour in France.—No. 2. 
The National Agricultural School of Grignon, being 
within a few miles of Wideville, where I was staying, I 
drove over one fine morning to see it. This is one of the 
most flourishing of the several government institutions 
that have been established, of late years, in France; and 
it is only within a comparatively short time that the im¬ 
portance of these schools has been acknowledged by the 
government ; but no sooner was it fairly convinced of the 
fact, than, with the usual promptitude of royal proceed¬ 
ings, several of them were founded in the various depart¬ 
ments, and liberally endowed. They have been conducted 
with entire success, and yearly send forth a number of 
scientific and practical fanners to diffuse the information 
they have obtained throughout the land, besides con¬ 
tributing to the experimental and theoretical progress of 
the science itself. M. Bellat, the director of the estab¬ 
lishment, is most admirably fitted for the important post 
he occupies. Being devotedly fond of the pursuit, his 
whole mind and energies are given to it, and the pros¬ 
perous state of the school shows with what good result. 
He has traveled and studied the agriculture of foreign 
countries, and is thus enabled to adopt everything that is 
appropriate to his own. M. Bellat informed me that their 
graduates had already spread themselves over the four 
quarters of the globe—one was near Constantinople, over¬ 
seeing an establishment of the Sultan’s—another was in 
Asia Minor—two were in the United States, and M. 
Pichat, the able director of the Rambouillet flock, was 
himself a graduate. Such results were most gratifying 
proofs of the advantages of these institutions. 
The farm consists of about three hundred acres under 
very high cultivation, and was formerly an estate belong¬ 
ing to a noble family, and the Chateau or mansion bouse, 
a fine old building of the time of Louis XIII, is still 
standing, and contains the dormitories of the students, 
lecture rooms, &c. See. I was told it needed repairs ex¬ 
ceedingly, so much so that visitors were not now admit¬ 
ted. The farm buildings are very large and commodious 
and directly adjoining the Chateau; the first of these was 
the cow stables, a long range of well ventilated stone 
buildings, with a row of wide stalls running the whole 
length of one side, and a broad alley behind them. About 
a hundred cows are kept for their milk, which is taken 
to Paris; it sells at the stables for about seven cents a 
gallon. The cows are mostly of the dun Swiss breed, 
sometimes crossed with the Durham; they are very large, 
and generally yield abundance of milk, but must be great 
consumers; when dried off they feed kindly. Over each 
stall was a printed label, with the name and age of the 
cow and the quantity of milk she gave per day. The 
half dozen hulls I saw did not strike me as anything re¬ 
markable, and were decidedly deficient in handling. 
The Director has great faith in Guenon’s theory of 
11 Escutcheons,” as signs of the milking property, and 
told me that in selecting cows, he always had reference 
to it.and usually found it correct. This testimony, coming 
as it does from a man of such large experience, enjoying 
such ample opportunity of testing it, should go far to 
give credit to a theory, which, if it be correct, is all im¬ 
portant to dairymen. My own experience and observa¬ 
tion would decidedly favor the theory, not perhaps in all 
its minutia, or to the whole extent claimed by its author. 
I found that a careful register was kept of the course 
of breeding pursued, as well as of the various experi¬ 
ments in this little understood science, and an annual 
report drawn up. 
We next went to the pig-sties, and found the swinish 
multitude in great force, of every breed and variety; 
numerous crosses had been tried, but without any striking 
results. The English breed appeared to he the favorites, 
and amongst these I observed some rather inferior look¬ 
ing Berk shires. The buildings and arrangements for 
them were convenient, but without novelty. 
I was more disappointed in the sheep than in any other 
of the stock; they are by no means worthy of the es¬ 
tablishment ; nor was I surprised when I found that the 
Director had been seized with the English mania, so pre¬ 
valent here of late, and had been trying crosses of the 
South-Down, the Dishley and the New Kent breeds on 
the Merinoes, in nearly all cases using Merino ewes; the 
results, in my opinion, are unsatisfactory. The charac¬ 
teristics of the two latter breeds especially, being so 
widely different from those of the Merino that they have 
not amalgamated well; the progeny is uneven, inclining 
decidedly to one side or the other, and inferior to either 
parent; with the South Downs the cross was more suc¬ 
cessful ; but I regretted to see so mixed a flock, where I 
had expected to find good specimens of the true French 
Merinos. M. Bellat said, in answer to my remarks, 
that fine wool was not paying well, and that the people 
wanted food rather than clothing. These considerations 
had led to the experiments with which he seemed satis¬ 
fied, and he still hoped to combine the excellencies of 
mutton sheep, with a sufficiently fine fleece to insure an 
almost double profit from the one animal. 
The system pursued here of feeding and of registering 
consumx>tion and production, was admirable; every ani¬ 
mal or set of animals is numbered, and a separate ac¬ 
count kept with each—(this is done by the students as 
part of their duty.) At the doors of the buildings are 
tables, giving the quantity, quality, and price of the food 
consumed per head daily , with averages, estimates, &c., 
and in the fattening houses the weekly and monthly in¬ 
crease in weight, was added. These tables are renewed 
and altered as often as changes are made. The calcula¬ 
tions are very close, and probably as accurate as they 
will admit of. The many difficulties of carrying out ex¬ 
periments of this kind are only to he known by actual 
trial. 
The root cellars were quite novel in their construction, 
being a series of tunnels excavated in a high bank of cal¬ 
careous tufa, which from its close texture, required no 
arching of masonry, they were about eight feet high by as 
many broad, and fifty or sixty in depth; at the further end 
was a shaft or chimney ascending into the open air for 
ventilation; the floor was rammed hard and smooth, al¬ 
lowing carts easily to hack in and readily unload; a space 
is always left above the roots, immediately under the 
roof, and in mild weather by opening the doors a current 
of air passes the whole length of the tunnel, giving a 
perfect ventilation through the chimneys, and thus making 
it easy to preserve the roots at the required temperature. 
The crop of mangel wurzel is very large, as the cows 
