In fact, agriculture now has recourse to physics and mechanics as well
as to chemistry. Now, although there were agricultural laboratories
whose mission it was to fix the choice of the cultivator upon such or
such a seed or fertilizer, there was no official establishment
designed to inform him as to the value of machines, the models of
which are often very numerous. _Chemical_ advice was to be had, but
_mechanical_ advice was wanting. It is such a want that has just been
supplied. Upon the report presented by Mr. Tisserand, director of
agriculture, a ministerial decree of the 24th of January, 1888,
ordered the establishment of an experimental station. Mr. Ringelmann,
professor of rural engineering at the school of Grignon, was put in
charge of the installation of it, and was appointed its director. He
immediately began to look around for a site, and on the 17th of
December, 1888, the Municipal Council of Paris, taking into
consideration the value of such an establishment to the city's
industries, decided that a plot of ground of an area of 3,309 square
meters, situated on Jenner Street, should be put at the disposal of
the minister of agriculture for fifteen years for the establishment
thereon of a trial station.
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