MANUSCRIT. - Creation of the Council of Agriculture... - Lot 164 - Giquello

Lot 164
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MANUSCRIT. - Creation of the Council of Agriculture... - Lot 164 - Giquello
MANUSCRIT. - Creation of the Council of Agriculture and Arts. S.l.n.d. [An IV-1795]. Manuscript in-folio (325 x 220 mm) of 3 pages, bradel modern cardboard. Manuscript draft, with numerous corrections and additions, describing in ten articles the activities of the newly created Conseil d'agriculture et des arts whose main purpose, stipulated in article I, was to enlighten the government and to spread instruction on agricultural work and on the processes of the arts. This body was instituted in 1795 by Pierre Bénézech (1749-1802), then Minister of the Interior. It was composed of two sections of 12 members each. The section of agriculture was to assume the direction of a rural establishment where one was to establish the best methods of cultivation, to compare the agricultural instruments, to test the productions whose use was not widespread, to collect in a nursery the most interesting species of trees, etc. The arts section was to supervise the Conservatory of Arts and the advanced workshop, ensure the construction of agricultural machinery, establish instructional workshops for the industrial branches, etc. Agriculture required much more urgent measures. Benezech inaugurated them with the formation of a council. To collect and spread instructions on the improvements to be made in the countryside was the first basis of an active correspondence; it made known the insufficiency of the rural code; [...] rural establishments [were] encouraged, improved and preserved. The nursery of the Carthusian monks was saved from complete destruction; those of Versailles and Trianon were given the destination of providing the trees necessary for the ornament of public gardens, of the main roads, and for the instruction of the pupils in the central schools [...]. Finally, as a testimony of his solicitude, Benezech charged the agricultural council to give a careful edition of Olivier de Serres' Théâtre d'agriculture (Sommervogel, Un Ministre de l'Intérieur sous le Directoire, 1868, pp. 22-23). Small paper perforation caused by ink on the first leaf with damage to some letters in the text.
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