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Average amount received at each Fair for admission fees, $11,307 12.

* Deceased.

ERRATA.

In Mr. Waddle's reply to Mr. Gates, on page 22, read "for every Shorthorn we had paid $12.30," instead of "$123."

There are many errors, consisting of omission of words, incorrect orthography, &c., sufficient to fill a page, but the intelligent reader will be able to supply the omissions and correct the orthography.

CONDITION OF AGRICULTURE IN OHIO IN 1863.

In his work on the Rural Economy of France,* Mr. Lavergne discusses the question, "What has been the influence of the Revolution of 1789 upon the agriculture of France ?" throughout a work of 475 duodecimo pages, in which he says: "If we compare the condition of agriculture in 1789 with that of 1859, we will find that very great progress has been made in these seventy years. This progress is, for the greater part, attributable to new principles which the revolution has introduced into our laws."

What were these new principles evolved by the revolution? "Before the revolution," Mr. Lavergne proceeds to inform us, "the church and nobility owned about three-fourths of the territory of France; here and there a wealthy bourgeois, or well-to-do farmer, owned a small tract. The nobility and church not only dietated the price at which agricultural products must be sold by the producer, but dictated the number of acres to be grown in any special crop, and the amount of seed to be sown per acre." The consequence of this church and nobility farming "produced a famine throughout the land about every tenth year." The farmers of one department were not permitted, under penalty of death, to sell their surplus breadstuffs to an adjoining, or other department; and any one, whether noble or peasant, who would dare to export any breadstuffs without royal permission, was sure to suffer the death penalty. Hence the mobs and riots to obtain bread; it could not be purchased, for the peasants dared not to sell. The revolution confiscated the lands of the church and nobility, as well as of the loyal bourgeoise and farmers; free trade among the departments in breadstuffs was declared; and no dictator, except the farmer's own judgment, prescribed the amount of seed per acre, nor indicated the fields to be cultivated in this or that kind of crop, whilst the price was regulated by supply and demand.

These radical changes, all of the utmost importance and advantage to the French farmer, were brought about by the revolution of 1789. But

• ECONOMIE RURALE de la France, depuis 1789, par M. de Lavergne, membre de l'Institut, de la société centrale d'Agriculture de France, ancient député. Paris, Deuxieme edition, 1861.

during the revolution the condition of agriculture was in the most deplorable condition imaginable; there was no stimulus to labor, and productive industry was almost suspended. None knew what a day might bring forth. Life was sacrificed upon the slightest pretexts, and there was no security whatever to property. "War to the castles, but peace to the cottages," was the cry of the armed mob as it patrolled France; but the agricultural relations of the cottages to the castles were so close, that when the latter were burned, the former were destroyed.

In other words, the French revolution of 1789 laid the foundation of a rational and free system of agriculture. Agriculture was no longer burthened with tythes, champerties, and perpetual ground rents, in addition to the taxes; it had also what it never before enjoyed in France, free commerce amongst the departments. All these circumstances combined, together with agricultural schools, have more than doubled the crop products of France since the revolution, whilst the population has not increased more than 33 per cent. The following figures show the difference in the distribution of the kinds of crops:

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The revolution has reduced the area in fallows to one half of its former dimensions. No wonder that in 1789 Arthur Young, who was then traveling in France, wrote: "The Prince of Soubise and the Duke of Bouillon are the two greatest proprietors in France; but the only evidence I have as yet discovered of their grandeur, are their immense fallows, uncultiva ted lands and deserts. Ah! if I were only for several days a legislator of France, how I would make these grand signeurs dance!" It struck even Arthur Young, Englishman as he was, that 20 per cent. of the entire area of a country was too much to lie fallow.

As we are approaching the fourth year of the rebellion, we may ask,

* The Hectare is very near 2 acres.

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