• LAW'S TRANSLATION OF ROUSSINGAULT'S RURAL ECONOMY.
BOUSSINGAULT is at Paris a member of the Institute, and a dis- tinguished chemist • on his farm at Bechelbronn he is a practical agriculturist on a large scale, in a scientific, systematic, business-like way, and with sip eye to profit ; he was formerly a philosophical traveller in many regions, observant alike of the phmnomena of nature and the practices of man, especially in reference to cultivation, or rather to all vegetable growth. These various qualifications give the character to Rural Economy in its relations with Chemistry, Physics, and Meteorology. The abstract conclusions of the chemist in his laboratory are constantly checked by the agriculturist, who knows how many prac- tital difficulties constantly impede a theoretical possibility ; or that though the thing can be done readily enough, it will not answer as a matter of profit. On the other hand, the mere farmer is elevated by his junction with the philosopher. The reason of every practice, even when established by the experience of ages is sought out and assigned; the various laws of vegetable and animal lie in relation to production and growth are un- foIded ; the operation of the elements in a popular sense—as air, rain, heat—is considered ; the constituent principles of the soil, with their various modifications, are inquired into ; and directions are given for the easy performance of analytical experiments on this and cognate subjects. The two characters of philosopher and agriculturist are nicely balanced ; but (it may be fancy, or it may be, as the farmers maintain, that chemistry cannot in practice do so much as is assumed) the farmer seems rather to predominate over the chemist in Boussingault. An application of the principles of chemistry and physiology to prac- tical farming is, however, only one phase of the book. M. Boussingault's acquirements as a man Of science, and his experience as a traveller, have given him a large knowledge and a living interest beyond a single country. From books and observation he has examined the agriculture of the world, or at least of Europe and America; and examined it not only in its special but in its large results. The best mode of defending a region against the encroachments of the sands of the sea, or, by parity, of the desert—the effects of cultivation in lessening the quantity of rain that falls in a country, or of appearing to lessen it by more quickly dissipating the water—are examples of passing disquisition on the larger scale. Most of the operations or effects of agriculture are illustrated by reference to the practice of other countries ; and a warning is constantly deduced for the farmer to consider everything in relation to soil and climate, as a course of cultivation that succeeds in England may not answer across the Channel, or vice versa. Hence, besides its other excellences, Boussin- gault's Rural Economy contains an amazing number of agricultural facts ; both instructing and enlarging the mind of the agriculturist by the varied views and various knowledge it puts before him.
The general arrangement of the work does not materially differ from that of many compilations on agricultural chemistry ; if indeed they have not been derived, so far as they go, from Boassingault's book. Vege- table physiology, the physical pluenomena of vegetation, and the chemical constituents of vegetable substances, are first expounded. There is then an interesting, though for English farmers a useless examination of the saccharine fruits, and the liquor produced from them ; including an lute- account of the grape and wines. This is followed by soils, manures, and the rotation of crops, elaborately treated both generally and in detail. Animals are next considered, first in the nature of their food with reference to chemical principles, and then as regards the eco- nomy or management of the stock. A very valuable chapter on climate and meteorology in reference to cultivation, or more strictly to vegeta- tion, concludes the contents.
We have hitherto spoken of this book as if it dealt with general laws and their application. Such, no doubt, is its most prominent feature. There is, however, a great amount of particular detail in the work. In- numerable experiments made at Bechelbronn on cattle, crops, and meteo- rology, are recorded tabularly, or otherwise, as well as the analyses of various chemists on the constituent properties of animals and vegetables. These and such like parts are of course interesting only to those reading with an immediate object ; but the most general sections are at once attractive and informing, and will expand the farmer's mind while they furnish him with special instruction. From the more refined parts of chemistry Boussingault appears to think that agriculture will not derive much direct benefit ; and even the indirect effects that flow from a knowledge of the science must be applied by practical skill—chemistry will rather form the mind than form the farmer. The analysis of soils, for example, he holds to be practically useless, and indeed seldom if ever accurately performed. The two great constituents of soils are clay and sand. According to the proportion in which they are mixed, and the character of the climate, so mast the mode of culivation vary. Theory and common sense both show that bad soils can easily be improved by mixing sand with the clay or clay with amid; but experience also shows that such improvements are too costly to pay. It would be cheaper to buy better land at once, than by this process to improve a bad clay soil. The only safe mode of improve- ment is improved cultivation. This will always repay the additional expense, and, persisted in, will permanently improve the soil. It is here, no doubt, that chemistry will be available ; but the great thing is a spe- cial treatment according to special circumstances. One of the most curious parts of the book is the disquisition on the effect of cultivation in lessening the waters of the Valley d'Aragua in Venezuela, as observed by Humboldt in 1800, and by Boussingault him- self in 1825. This however, is too long for extract : we must take shorter quotations. The following is an interesting account of the manner in which Bremontier checked the encroachment of the sands on the plains of Gascony and consolidated the sands themselves.
OBSERVE AND FOLLOW NATURE.
Once aware of the fact that certain plants throve in the sands of downs, Bre- montier saw that they alone were capable of staying their progress and consoli- dating them. The grand object was to get plants to grow in moving sand, and to protect them from the violent winds which blow off the ocean, until their roots had got firm hold of the soil. Downs do not bound the ocean like beaches. From the base of the first hil- locks to the line which marks the extreme height of spring-tides, there is always a level over which the sand sweeps without pausing. It was upon this level space that Bremontier sowed his first belt of pine and furze-seeds, sheltering it by means of green branches, fixed by forked pegs to the ground, and in such a way that the wind should have least hold upon them' viz, by turning the lopped ex- tremities towards the wind. Experience has shown, that by proceeding thus, fir and furze-seeds not only germinate, but that the young plants grow with such rapidity, that by and by they form a thick belt, a yard and more in height. Suc- cess is now certain. The plantation, so far advanced, arrests the sand as it comes from the bed of the sea, and forms an effectual barrier to the other belts that are made to succeed it towards the interior. When the trees are five or six years of age, a new plantation is made contiguous to the first and more inland, from two hundred to three hundred feet in breadth; and so the process is carried on, until the summits of the hillocks are gradually attained. It was by proceeding in this way that Bremontier succeeded in covering the barren sands of the Arrachon basin with useful trees. Begun in 1787, the planta- tions in 1809 covered a surface of between 9,000 and 10,000 square acres. The success of these plantations surpassed all expectation: in sixteen years the pine- trees were from thirty-five to forty feet in height. Nor was the growth ot the furze, of the oak, of the cork, of the willow, less rapid. Bremontier showed for the first time in the annals of human industry, that moveable sands might not only be stayed in their desolating course, but actually rendered productive.
PROFIT OF PASTURE.
Those countries where the climate is moist, but long droughts rarely felt—where neither the summer heats nor the winter colds are excessive—the conditions in fact, which are met with in the beautiful pasture-lands of England, in especial— are those that prove most favourable to the rearing and feeding of cattle. The pasture-lands of Normandy and Brittany in France, of Switzerland, Holland, seve- ral of the provinces watered by the Rhine, &c., are also remarkable for their luxu- riant herbage. In such situations, and with such advantages, the grand object with the farmer is the production and fattening of cattle. Whenever it has been possible to lay down extensive and productive meadows' it is now beginning to be clearly, understood that the introduction of even the best system of rotation were to make a false application of agricultural science. In my opinion, there is no system of rotation however well conceived and carried out, which will stand com- parison in point oeproductiveness with a natural meadow favourably situated and properly attended to. The reason of this is obvious and follows from the very principles which we have laid down in treating of rotations. The whole object in the best system of husbandry is to make the earth produce the largest possible quantity of organic matter in a given time. But in such a system we are limited by the climate, inasmuch as we are obliged so to arrange matters that our crops shall always attain to complete maturity; the consequence of which is, that with all our pains the soil remains unproductive during a certain number of weeks and months towards the end of autumn, in the early spring, and through the whole of the winter. But upon meadow-lands vegetation is incessant; the winter even does not interrupt it completely; it still revives and makes progress on the bright days; and in the spring it proceeds when the mean temperature is but a few e- grecs above the freezing-point of water, and never ceases until it is checked again. by the severer cold of winter. It is "therefore easy to obtain conviction that a given surface of meadow-land must necessarily produce a larger quantity of forage than land laid out in any other way. It is true that the forage thus ob- tained will not, like the cereal grasses, answer immediately for the support of man; but it nevertheless concurs powerfully in this by producing milk, and butter, and cheese, and in breeding and fattening cattle: let there be added to all these advantages of what may be called a permanent vegetation, that the cost of keeping it in order is infinitely less, and that there is no risk tob will from failures of crops, and the vast advantages of meadow or pasture limd e m us with all their force.
GREEN-MEAT FLAVOURS.
If it be true, as it evidently is, that the quantity of milk produced depends. especially upon the absolute quantity of nutritive food consumed,. it is not so with the quality of the fluid. It is undeniable, that the milk of spring and summer, formed upon green and succulent food, ia much more palatable than that of' the winter season; the butter is also much finer and better-flavoured. The green
herbs of om-pastures undoubtedly contain volatile principles which-are dissipated and lost in the processes of drying and fermentation which they undergo in their conversion into-hay. If chemistry be powerless in seizing such principles, it still informs us of the possibility of introducing a variety of articles into the food of cows which have the property of communicating those qualities which we prize in milk. In all grazing countries certain vegetables are pointed out as giving, in thevulgar opinion, a particular aroma to the flavour of milk.
Considerable pains has been taken by Hr. Law in the translation. He has also judiciously reduced the bulk of the original, by omitting parts that have little interest to English farmers—as the cultivation of indigo. The French weights and measures have throughout been reduced to English denominations : a course occasionally involving minute fractional discrepancy, but highly judicious • for many readers of Rural Economy might not have the help at hand to enable them to interpret the hie- roglyphics, and still fewer would be at the trouble. Strange weights and measures ytop one like an unknown tongue.
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