What is known as practical farming would not return the seed and labor involved. As an intelligently and scientifically-directed industry, it has assumed a prosperous and profitable condition. The agricultural course in the Polytechnic is thorough and comprehensive. It covers the mechanical and chemical composition of the soil; the scientific basis as to the rotation of crops; the periods of growth at which plants take their nitrogen; how draining improves land; and many other similar matters varied in their application, but ruled by fixed laws, and which must be learned outside the daily experience and observation of farm-life. In the single crop of grass, which is of such great value in its relation to the extensive Swiss dairy interest, in its cultivation, grazing, and harvesting, the suggestions and counsel emanating from the agricultural department of the Polytechnic have been of incalculable value. The amount of this crop, from a cold and barren soil, and the uses to which it is turned would seem incredible to the American farmer. The Swiss farmer, to accomplish so much, must know something of the chemical analysis of the grass, both in the natural and dried state; the feeding value of like weight in the different varieties, in an equally moist or dry condition; the final stage of growth which they ought to be allowed to attain; suitability for permanent or other pastures; the adaptability of grasses for certain soil; their duration, ability to resist drouth, and strength to over-power weeds. Then come questions of hay-making, ensilage, the management of old and new grass-lands; on these and many others the peasant is enlightened and constantly advised, not only by the Polytechnic but from cantonal agricultural schools at Rütte (Bern), Strickhof (Zurich), Sursee (Luzern), and at Brugg (Aargau). There is an institution for experimental vine growing at Lausanne; a school of gardening at Geneva; and dairy schools at Sornthal (St. Gallen), and Trayveaux (Freiburg). From time to time lectures and short courses of instruction are given in different parts of the country on horticulture and vineculture, fodder-growing, cattle-breeding, by which some knowledge of the theory and technical details of agricultural science is given, with the view of awakening a spirit of enterprise in the more remote districts of the country. Forest culture and forest preservation may be considered a necessity in Switzerland, for its influence in checking the sudden and disastrous floods so common in the mountain streams, and in the protection and maintenance of the steep hill-sides which constitute so large a portion of the agricultural area of the country. While riparian trees are gross water-users, and usually deciduous, such as the sycamores, alders, willows, cottonwoods, etc., upon the mountains the trees are of a different class, and their effect is without known exception beneficial to irrigators and water-users in the valleys below.