Marshal Vauban proposed eating corn in soup, without being ground; it was boiled during two or three hours in water, and when the grains had burst, a little salt, butter, or milk, was added. This food is very nice, not unwholesome, and might be employed when flour is scarce, heated, or half-rotten.--DUTOUR. The Chinese instituted a ceremony which had for its base to honour the profession of agriculture: every year, at the time of ploughing the fields, the emperor with all his court paid a visit to his country residence near Pekin, and then marked out several furrows with his plough. In 1793, the National Convention of France instituted also a similar fête; and the president of the local administration of his county was to mark out a furrow. In 1848 a grand republican procession took place through Paris, to the Champ de Mars, wherein agriculture played a prominent part. The first treatise on agriculture was printed in 1538; and its importance has been so much felt from that period, that there are now in France more than one hundred and twenty societies of agriculture, who distribute prizes to encourage discoveries for the improvement of this science. We have, in our days, the Royal Agricultural Society of England, which also awards prizes;[V] and through such institutions all information can be obtained on the successive progresses made in that indispensable art, which may be said to have arrived to such a degree of perfection, that future generations may find some difficulty in improving upon it. One great evidence of which is, the immense number of samples of agricultural produce, machines, and implements of husbandry, which great and the glorious Exhibition of 1851 has ushered to the world. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE No. III. No. 1. Is the plain sickle. No. 2. Another, with teeth. No. 3. A scythe, very similar to those now in use. No. 4. A spade; its handle is supplied with a double crossbar, fixed at a little distance off the spade, to support the foot; it is still so used in Italy and the southern parts of France. No. 5. A pickaxe, as it was found engraved on the various sarcophagi; the pick end was sometimes flattened, and then called pick-axe. Nos. 6 and 7. The mattocks; the first was drawn from an engraved stone in the “Monuments Antiq.” of Winckelmann. No. 2 A. Represents a plough, composed according to the “Georgics” of Virgil.