not without its significance when the peasants rose
in vengeance on their lords two and twenty years later, that the
dispersion of the hamlets and the solitude of the farms had made it
customary for the people to go about with fire-arms. Besides encouraging
the destruction of noxious beasts, Turgot did something for the
preservation of beasts not noxious. The first veterinary school in
France had been founded at Lyons in 1762. To this he sent pupils from
his province, and eventually he founded a similar school at Limoges. He
suppressed a tax on cattle, which acted prejudicially on breeding and
grazing; and he introduced clover into the grass-lands. The potato had
been unknown in Limousin. It was not common in any part of France; and
perhaps this is not astonishing when we remember that the first field
crop even in agricultural Scotland is supposed only to have been sown in
the fourth decade of that century. People would not touch it, though
the experiment of persuading them to cultivate this root had been
frequently tried. In the Limousin the people were even more obstinate in
their prejudice than elsewhere. But Turgot persevered, knowing how
useful potatoes would be in a land where scarcity of grain was so
common. The ordinary view was that they were hardly fit for pigs, and
that in human beings they would certainly breed leprosy. Some of the
English Puritans would not eat potatoes because they are not mentioned
in the Bible, and that is perhaps no better a reason than the other.
When, however, it was seen that the Intendant had the hated vegetable
served every day at his own table, the opposition grew more faint; men
were at last brought to consent to use potatoes for their cattle, and
after a time even for themselves.

It need scarcely be said that among Turgot's efforts for agricultural
improvement, was the foundation of an agricultural society. This was the
time when the passion for provincial academies of all sorts was at its
height. When we consider that Turgot's society was not practical but
deliberative, and what themes he proposed for discussion by it, we may
believe that it was one of the less useful of his works. What the
farmers needed was something much more directly instructive in the
methods of their business, than could come of discussions as to the
effects of indirect taxation on the revenues of landowners, or the right
manner of valuing the income of land in the different kinds of
cultivation. 'In th