What was the result, finally, of the movement which the agronomes started, and how far did the English influence affect the movement itself?

Any attempt to answer this question should not lose sight of two important points: (a) the verdict of the eighteenth century itself; (b) our present historical perspective which somewhat modifies that verdict.

We find this statement at the close of our period:

Il nous semble résulter de ce qui a été dit, écrit et fait: Que les livres, Mémoires, Essais raodernes sur l'agriculture en général et la culture particuliere des plantes qui font l'objet des travaux du laboureur, du vigneron, du jardinier pépiniériste, maraicher, fleuriste, ont rendu les connaissances sur les divers produits qu'on peut tirer de la terre et sur les moyens dont on y parvient, plus communes qu'elles ne l'étaient precedemment dans la classe des gens aises et riches—Que le gout des gens aisés et riches pour raisonner et s'instruire des divers objets d'agriculture a fait passer quelques cultures usitees dans certains cantons dans d'autre qui ne s'en occupaient point, spécialement les pommes de terre, les gros navets, turnips ou rabioules.

Two facts are particularly worth noticing in this moderate and penetrating statement. First, the new acquisitions began to spread; secondly, taste and knowledge for the new method of farming were limited to a certain class of society, namely, the more well-to-do.

In regard to modern conclusions that in 1789 French husbandry was not much transformed, the value of the movement initiated by the agronomes may, on the face of it, seem negligible, and has in fact sometimes been dismissed. Figures and statistics are not generally concerned with changing agricultural conceptions, which in their turn have little bearing on these symbols of material and immediate results.

It has been the purpose of this study to show that ‘possible’ or ‘potential’ facts, ‘virtualities’ also have their special importance. They did not immediately affect the state of agriculture. Yet in 1789 the new theory, not yet 50 years old, had opened all the avenues that led to our modern conceptions.