AGRICULTURAL REPORT.

some being conducted by the government; others by societies; while a third class belongs to private individuals. Instruction is often en- couraged by premiums offered by societies to the best pupils. The more important of these institutions have commissioners appointed to furnish regular reports to the Department of Agriculture, and though the greater number of them have only been in existence for about ten years, the results are considered satisfactory.

For the further improvement of flax-culture, the government pro- vides some districts with stationary, and others with itinerant teach- ers, practically trained for the cultivation of flax and dye plants. There is also set aside for this purpose a special appropriation(the Royal Grace Fund) and a mutual stock company. In its manufacture penitentiary labor is sometimes employed. Some of the societies provide for the distribution of good flax-seed and machinery, pub- lishing, also, circulars on its improvement.

For silk-culture, there are ten reeling establishments, and twenty- one mulberry plantations. Some of the societies distribute cuttings and seeds, a portion of which is planted on roadsides, graveyards, and other public places. Among the silk-growers there are some who also give instruction in this branch, as is done in the model silk establishment at Breslau, which has reeling and spinning machines, with an operative hatching machine, and eighteen smaller ones, the latter distributed as models among the agricultural officers in the various parts of the districts. It has also three ingenious models for showing the interior structures made by the worms in the stages of the last development. It likewise issues communications on this sub- Ject.

The impro'rrement of arable and grass-lands is liberally and most advantageously encouraged and promoted on the part of the govern- ment and societies by judicious appointments of draining engineers in several parts of the country, the profits of which enterprises, in an agricultural and economical point of view, are most clearly shown in the construction of excellent roads as well as in those large tracts of arable and grass-lands regained from a net of lakes and swamps in the northeastern part of the kingdom.

With regard to fruit-culture, there are several model pomological gardens, a large number of nurseries for growing fruit-trees, coniferous and foliaceous trees, and two for raising tree seeds. Some of these nurseries are conducted by the government; others by the agricul- tural societies, with a view of distributing seeds, cuttings, and trees among their members, an illustration of which is given in an official report on the nurseries planted in the province of Westphalia in 1855. From this report, it appears that this province has nine hun- dred and forty-five nurseries, containing four hundred and thirty-nine thousand, four hundred and eighty ungrafted stocks, and two hun- dred and twenty thousand, one hundred and sixty-two grafted ones, and that the trees sold and distributed over the province amounted to twenty-three thousand, one hundred and forty-one. Some of the nurseries are the property or in charge of private persons, especially of experienced teachers, for the purpose of diffusing that kind of

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