Its object is to improve agriculture, not only in the department of
La Seine, but throughout France. For this purpose, it maintains a
regular correspondence with all the agricultural societies of the
other departments. It publishes memoirs, in which are inserted the
results of its labours, as well as the notices and observations read
at the meetings by any one of its members, and the decision which has
followed.
Every year it proposes prizes for the solution of some question
important to the amelioration of agriculture.
What, at first view, appears extraordinary, is not, on that account,
less founded on truth. Amidst the storms of the revolution,
agriculture has been improved in France. At a period of happiness and
tranquillity, the soil was not so well cultivated as in times of
terror and mourning; because, during the latter, the lands enjoyed
the franchises so long wanted. Hands never failed; for, when the men
marched to the armies, women supplied their place; and no one was
ashamed to handle the spade or the plough.
However, if, in 1789, agriculture in France was far from a state of
prosperity, it was beginning to receive new light from the labours of
the agricultural societies. That of Paris had given a great impulse
to the culture of artificial meadows, potatoes, hemp, flax, and
fruit-trees. Practical directions, spread with profusion in the
country, had diverted the inhabitants from the routine which they had
blindly followed from generation to generation.
Before the revolution, the French began to imitate us in gelding
their horses, and giving to their lackies, their coachmen, and their
equipages an English appearance; instead of copying us in the
cultivation of our land, and adopting the principles of our rural
economy. This want of foresight they are now anxious to repair, by
increasing their pastures, and enriching them by an extensive variety
of plants, augmenting the number of their cattle, whether intended
for subsistence or reproduction, and improving the breed by a mixture
of races well assorted, procuring a greater quantity of manure,
varying their culture so as not to impoverish the soil, and
separating their lands by inclosures, which obviate the necessity of
constantly employing herdsmen to tend their cattle.
Agriculture has, unquestionably, suffered much, and is still
suffering in the western departments. Notwithstanding the succour
afforded by the government to rebuild and repair the deserted
cottages and barns, to supply them with men and cattle, to set the
ploughs to work, and revive industry, it is still evident that the
want of confidence which maintains the value of money at an
exorbitant rate, the love of stock-jobbing, the impossibility of
opening small loans, the excessive price of manual labour,
contributions exacted in advance, and the distress of most of the
land-owners, who are not in a condition to shew favour to their
tenants, are scourges which still overwhelm the country. But I am
credibly informed that, in general, the rural inhabitants now lend a
more attentive ear to instruction, and that prejudices have less
empire over their reason. The great landed proprietors, whom terror
had induced to fly their country, have, on recovering possession of
their patrimony, converted their parks into arable land. Others, who
are not fond of living in town, are daily repairing to their estates,
in order to superintend the cultivation of them. No one disdains the
simple title of farmer. Old publications relative to agriculture are
reprinted in a form more within reach of the capacity of the people;
though treatises on domestic animals are still much wanted.
At Rambouillet, formerly the country-seat of the duke of Penthièvre,
is an experimental national farm. Fine cattle are now held in high
estimation. Flocks of sheep of the Spanish breed are daily
increasing; and the number of those of a pure race, already imported,
or since bred in France, exceeds 8000.[1] Wide roads, which led to
one solitary castle only, have been ploughed, and sown. The rage for
ornamental gardens and pleasure-grounds is dying away. The breeding
of horses, a branch of industry which the war and the requisition had
caused to be abandoned, is on the point of being resumed with
increased activity. It is in contemplation to establish studs, on
plans better combined and much more favourable to the object than
those which formerly existed. In short, the ardent wish of the
thinking part of the nation seems to be, that the order which the
government is endeavouring to introduce into every branch of its
administration, may determine the labourer to proportion his hire to
the current price of corn; but all these truths assembled form not
such a sketch as you may, perhaps, expect. The state of French
agriculture has never yet been delineated on a comprehensive scale,
except by Arthur Young. You must persuade him to repeat his tour, if
you wish for a perfect picture.[2]
* * * * *
_March 22, in continuation._
Most persons are acquainted with DIDOT'S stereotypic editions of the
classics, &c. which are sold here for 15 _sous_ per copy. Nothing
more simple than the plan of this mode of printing. A page is first
set up in moveable types; a mould or impression is then taken of the
page with any suitable plastic substance, and a solid page is cast
from it. The expense of a solid page exceeds not that of resetting it
in moveable types; so that, by this invention, the price of books
will be considerably reduced, and standard works will never be out of
print. Nor are these the only advantages attending the use of
stereotype; I must mention another of still greater importance.
By the common method of printing, it is impossible ever to have
correct books. They are in the market before all their errors are
discovered; and the latest edition of a work, which ought to be the
most correct, is necessarily the most faulty; for it presents not
only the errors of that from which it was copied, but also those
peculiar to itself. Stereotypic books are printed only to answer the
extent of the demand; and errors, when discovered, being corrected in
the metal, they must, through time and attention, become immaculate;
a circumstance of infinite importance in astronomical and
mathematical tables of every description.[3]
For elegance of printing, DIDOT is the BENSLEY of Paris; but to see a
grand establishment in this line, you must go to the _Rue de la
Vrillière_, near the _Place des Victoires_, and visit the