Agricultural Show

A agricultural Comice is an assembly trained by the owners and the farmers of an area to exchange the experiments of each one in order to improve the agricultural processes.

Origins of the agricultural shows

Already, before the French revolution, there existed what one called of the “Companies of Agriculture, Sciences, Arts and Belles Letters” which made it possible to the more scholars to gather in order to exchange and make bear fruit the ideas.

Thus in 1764, somebody wrote a “memory on the culture of the sainfoin”.

In 1784, a large effort was made in favor of the peasants victims of the floods and in the rural company, idealized by the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, agriculture was found so to speak on a pedestal.

In 1788, one created a Grand Prix of which the king Louis XVI in person made an official handing-over with the prize winner of it. It was at that time that were organized the agricultural first meetings in the general information of Paris. But the educated men, those which started to come to the ground, well quickly were worried by the constant progression of misery in the campaigns and were exaltés by the propagation of the novel ideas and progressists.

The Revolution occurred, the agricultural Shows were removed in 1793, at that time where any gathering, that he was supporter of corporatism or not, could seem suspect.

Under the Directory, a man stuck particularly in the future and to the development of agriculture in France. It is about François de Neufchâteau. It was one of the first of those which one could call “agrairiens”. This middle-class man with the innovative spirit worked to make reappear the Companies of Agriculture and made so that those become real engines of innovations and performances. In fact, they were incontestably instigators of progress recorded at that time.

Maurice Agulhon perfectly retranscribed the frame of mind “post-revolutionist” who could prevail in these last years of the 18th century: “When indeed, in the processions of the official festivals, the tanks carrying symbols or allegorical groups are trailed by oxen (with the horns gilded) and decorated with green branches, it is the world of the fields which the whole of the setting in scene evokes invincibly. And to stronger reason, when the procession of the “plowmen”, the Spade or the Hoe on the shoulder, follow the procession of the National Guards out of weapons, then, to final, comes to mingle with him for the symbolic system exchange with the tool and rifle. This valorization of agriculture is thus well far from being reduced to the simple incentive to work and produce. It also raises of the expression of an impregnated good citizenship all Roman reminiscences in which the citizen and the statesman are at the same time soldier and peasant”.

The Directory left the place to the Consulate which, him even grew blurred in front of a new order, the Empire. There required then more for rifles that hoes and the concerns of agriculture were relegated to places subordinates.

In other words, Napoleon {{Ier}} was worried more by its campaigns than by the countryside.

The December 27th 1819, the duke Elie Decazes sent to all the prefects of France a numbered circular “115”, which was accompanied by a small booklet carried out by J.B Huzard Fils veterinary doctor, correspondent of the royal and central Société of agriculture which had as a heading: “Of the agricultural Assemblies in England”.

This study wanted to show the utility of the contests which were organized on the other side of the channel in all the chief towns of the Counties and detailed the procedure of these associations.

The duke Decazes, Minister of Interior Department of Louis XVIII, insisted on the need for reproducing this English model: “It seemed to me that so similar institutions could acclimatize themselves in a State as advantageously located as France, our agriculture would withdraw invaluable fruits from them. Our farmers, sharing their practical knowledge and their experiment, would be better appreciated and would stick more in their state. (…) All that is used for food of the man, would improve in quality and increases in quantity. Our markets would be supplied better and more abundantly and an addition of general ease would be one of the happy results of agricultural associations which we would have had the good spirit to borrow from our neighbors” .

A few months later, the May 22nd 1820, a new circular n° 35, emanating this time of the Office of the clearings, was signed by the minister Secretary of State of the Interior. In fact, Mr. Siméon addressed to all the corresponding members of the Council of agriculture in order to cause a true reflection for the future installation of the Comices: “It is important much to know the nature of the rural productions and the species of animals which one would present to the meeting, the kind of encouragement which the government could grant, the place where would be held the assembly and the times of the meeting” .

It was necessary however to await 1830 to see truly refleurir here and there in France, the Companies of Agriculture. There Deserted Gabriel and Robert Specklin saw there a manner used by the noble ones and the notable legitimists to refuse the new mode, following the differently called Revolution of Glorious July “the Three”.

This return to the ground made it possible these “gentlemen-farmers” to be erased Parisian political life and at the same time, to better devote itself to make bear fruit and emphasize their land goods. A new way of conceiving the culture from now on was integrated in the spirit of the landowners.

This phenomenon which one called “agromanie” a time developed a more powerful vision and more capitalist of the agricultural production. Thus, starting from 1830, the reign of Louis-Philippe represented a true turning for French agriculture. In this context, the first “contests of plow” were organized and general inspectors of agriculture were named. First model farm made their appearance at this same time.

The May 31st 1833, the Regulation to create the agricultural shows was promulgated.

The circular n° 26, sent by the Minister of Interior Department to the prefects the June 24th 1836, was used to some extent as recall with those which were late in this true plan of emancipation of national agriculture.

Today, one would undoubtedly speak about “diagrams national of rural development” or something of this kind. “Any delay which can indeed only obstruct progress of these institutions to which the government owes protection and encouragements” , specified the minister who expressly requested the representatives of the State to show greater persuasion near the agricultural mediums.

It seems that the agricultural first meeting which took place in France, was organized in the department of the Nievre.

The principle of this great rural demonstration had been initiated by André Dupin, eminent lawyer, deputy of the district of Clamecy and chair House of Commons under Louis Philippe. The June 9th 1839, in the room of the Adjudications of the town of Clamecy, a Company had been created, to which one had given the name of “Comice of district of Clamecy”. It was a question “of founding the frequent ones and intimate reports/ratios between the owners and the farmers and in same time, to stimulate the role of all those which were delivered to agriculture and the breeding, while encouraging and by propagating the improvement of the ploughing implements and the best methods of rotation, to share and as much as possible to spread knowledge acquired on the improvement of the races of cattle by means of a crossing combined well” . The will of these founding fathers was exaucée since it leads without question to the creation of the race Charolaise. The date of the first contest was thus fixed at the Sunday the 1st er September 1839.

The Second Republic, by its laws of the February 25th, March 10th, March 20th and March 25th 1851, equipped still better these associations with a legal existence. It gave them even the possibility of electing members of the rooms of agriculture. Just a year later, the decree of March 25th 1852 withdrew this attribution to them. It is true that meanwhile, the December 2nd 1851, the coup d'etat of Napoleon III had passed by there…

At all events, the practice was taken and it is not without some febrility, but with a real happiness, that the workers of the ground are reflected to lead calves, cows, pigs, with the chief town of canton where the semi-townsmen awaited them by pavoisant the streets.

He was allocated to the populations of the countryside from which nobody would have dared to dispute the intense activity and ceaseless work, to celebrate Agriculture and to decree the right rewards with those which had been announced at the same time by the intelligence and the obstinacy of their labor. Wasn't it true that during long centuries, people of the ground had been ignored as much than ill-considered? If their poor wretches living conditions were notorious, nobody sought for as much sympathizing on their painful existence.

The principle of these meetings had been conceived under the royalist Restoration, it was concretized truly under the Second Empire and yet, it preceded already the great republican festivals.

Random links: