The problem of cattle was very urgent in eighteenth-century France. A chronological study of agricultural literature would show that cattle problems were more and more studied from 1750 onwards. Between 1750 and 1770 problems of soil cultivation preponderated. After 1770 the number of books on cattle increased and connections with English methods grew progressively closer. Although reasons were rather different from those which gave rise to the same movement in England, the success of English experiments had a very great influence on the French problem. It must be in fact pointed out that, while in England researches were directed towards an increment of meat ‘gained by better methods of breeding directed specifically towards that purpose’, propaganda was made in France in favour of an increment of the number of cattle. Indeed, the question of improvement was also raised, but it was the number of animals that could be supported with the new agriculture which seemed to matter mostly.

The importance of cattle had for long been recognized; Liger wrote, ‘on peut dire que le betail a cornes fait la richesse de la campagne et que c'est de lui que nous vient cette abondance de toutes choses que nous y voyons régner’.Chomel also pointed out the urgency of the cattle question. France had not enough cattle and the existing breeds were more or less degenerate. But as these early agriculturists emphasized mostly the need for draught purposes and manure, and as the consumption of meat was relatively small, they showed no marked interest in the improvement of breeds in so far as the question of meat or dairj products was concerned. However, Chomel, in well-informed articles about English sheep and goats, declares that the process which gave the English their beautiful breeds should be imitated, for it was the problem of wool, an urgent requirement of French industry, which he had in mind.

After 1750 the question, while remaining fundamentally the same, was enlarged in scope by the introduction of the new theories on husbandry. The connection which existed between the ‘new system’ and the problem of livestock was substantially to amplify the latter, so that it was of capital importance on the eve of the Revolution in 1754.