Highlights

  • Colchicum autumnale L. var floribus Alb-plenis et purporeo-plenis
    Favourite

    Colchicum autumnale, the beautiful poisoner

    Agate presents its current favorite.
    Within our collections, numerous illustrations or photographs deserve to be exhibited for their aesthetic quality or originality. Today, Colchicum autumnale, the beautiful poisoner...

  • Exterior view of the Victoria Regia greenhouse. Van Houtte establishment, including some of the greenhouses, the large thermosiphon, the gasometer, the mill used to raise water and the seed depot.
    Botany

    Louis Van Houtte, the prince of 19th-century horticulturists

    A plant enthusiast, Louis Van Houtte set up a major horticultural business in Gentbrugge-lez-Gand, Belgium, in the middle of the 19th century, to which he added a school of European renown. His garden, his varietal creations and his trade in plants and seeds were a must for enthusiasts.

  • glacier Tré-la-Tête, the mountain packing, 1930
    Favourite

    When the scientist gets high

    Agate presents its current favorite.
    Within our collections, numerous illustrations or photographs deserve to be exhibited for their aesthetic quality or originality. Today, we are climbing the Tré-la-tête glacier.

  • Main gate at the Villa Thuret
    Botany

    The collections at the Villa Thuret

    On Cap d'Antibes, the villa of a scholar with a passion for botanical experiments is home to an acclimatisation garden with a remarkable variety of species. In addition to his research into algae, Gustave Thuret founded one of the first botanical and acclimatisation gardens on the Côte d'Azur. He amassed a rich library, whose early titles on flora, fungi, trees...

  • Repaired Dam number 2. The artificial silting is almost complete. The Decauville track is laid on the crest. Parlier 1931
    Natural Risks

    Dams and weirs, indirect protection through civil engineering

    Since the 1860s, government departments have been working to secure natural and human habitats threatened by erosion and mountain torrents. Civil engineering techniques are deployed to stabilise torrent beds and consolidate the banks.

     

  • Exhibition of the Horticultural Society of London at Chiswick Gardens
    Favourite

    Horticulture Celebrated at Chiswick Gardens

    Agate presents its current favorite.
    Within our collections, numerous illustrations or photographs deserve to be exhibited for their aesthetic quality or originality. Today, take a trip back to the 19th century in the gardens of Chiswick to visit the London Horticultural Society's exhibition.

  • Favourite

    Calceolaria: flowers with a surprising shape

    Agate presents its current favorite.
    Within our collections, numerous illustrations or photographs deserve to be exhibited for their aesthetic quality or originality.Today, an illustration of Calceolaria, introduced by horticulturist Louis Van Houtte in 1843.

  • Agriculture

    1887: a viticultural mission to America to save French vineyards

    Almost one hundred and fifty years ago, in the midst of the phylloxera crisis, Pierre Viala identified a new species of vine across the Atlantic, Vitis berlandieri, which helped save the French vineyards from certain death.

     

  • Disteganthus basi-lateralis is a species of the bromeliaceae family, native to French Guiana and described in 1847.
    Favourite

    The pineapple plant

    Agate presents its current favorite.
    Within our collections, numerous illustrations or photographs deserve to be exhibited for their aesthetic quality or originality.Today, Disteganthus basi-lateralis, the pineapple plant, is a species of the bromeliaceae family, native to French Guiana and described in 1847.

  • Riou-Bourdoux torrent (photographs of the drawn plans of the Riou-Bourdoux basin by Sardi. 188 – 189
    Natural Risks

    Silencing a torrent

    Since the 1860s, government departments have been working to secure natural and human habitats threatened by erosion and mountain torrents. Civil engineering and environmental engineering techniques are used. They range from masonry work to grass seeding to reforestation, and this is done from top to bottom.

  • Schoolteachers on a tour...
    Favourite

    Schoolteachers on a tour...

    Agate presents its current favorite.
    Within our collections, numerous illustrations or photographs deserve to be exhibited for their aesthetic quality or originality. Today, schoolteachers on a tour...

  • Entomology

    Charles Bonnet's fatherless aphids

    In 1745, Charles Bonnet describes the multiple experiments (carried out) under controlled conditions that enabled him to demonstrate the existence of asexual reproduction in aphids. Making the data available and describing the protocol to make it reproducible are still at the heart of the scientific approach today.

  • armchair ploughing
    Favourite

    Armchair ploughing

    Agate presents its current favorite.
    Within our collections, numerous illustrations or photographs deserve to be exhibited for their aesthetic quality or originality. Today, a "motorisation in the mountains" mission with ploughing on a armchair.

  • Avalanche in the Barral valley; photo by Plagnat; 30 January 1938.
    Natural Risks

    Of avalanches and people: tips for adapting your living environment

    In the high mountains, the snow can last for months and the risk of avalanches is permanent. Despite this, mountain dwellers have always adapted to this environment. Grouped together in communities and leading a self-sufficient life, they have used their ingenuity to take advantage of the constraints and subtleties of the terrain by relying on existing natural protections.

  • Mammoth strawberry plant (Van Houtte, 1849).
    Favourite

    A giant strawberry on the menu

    Agate presents its current favorite.
    Within our collections, numerous illustrations or photographs deserve to be exhibited for their aesthetic quality or originality.Today, for the pleasure of gourmets, the enormous volume, abundance, and fragrant flavor of the mammoth strawberry.

     

  • Caption: the piles for riser no. 1 are installed using a pile driver; the workers lift the drop hammer which, as it falls, drives the piles into the ground
    Natural Risks

    The Riou-Bourdoux: how to tame this terrible torrent?

    In the 19th century, the Riou-Bourdoux, the torrent that caused considerable damage in the lower Alps, was the subject of one of the most colossal torrential correction projects carried out in France by the Water and Forest Department.

     

  • The great men of the mountain land restoration: Prosper Demontzey
    Mountainous Area

    The great men of the mountain land restoration: Prosper Demontzey

    The history of the mountain land restoration (abbreviated RTM in French) services has been strongly marked by a few men with assertive characters and remarkable talents. Prosper Demontzey headed the reforestation department in the Lower Alps before overseeing RTM work throughout France. He wrote extensively to disseminate the principles of RTM and its techniques in the 19th century.

  • Reception basin in the black marls of the Péroucié stream at the foot of the village of Chateauneuf d'Entraunes (Alpes-Maritimes).
    Favourite

    Little man in the black marls

    Agate presents its current favorite.
    Within our collections, numerous illustrations or photographs deserve to be exhibited for their aesthetic quality or originality. Today, a little man in the black marls...

  • The Vachères torrent, a pioneering management experiment
    Natural Risks

    The Vachères torrent, a pioneering management experiment

    An experimental site and a technical, ecological and biological innovation: it is at this torrent in the Hautes Alpes that foresters from the mountain land restoration service undertake the first works in France aimed at curbing erosion and containing flooding.

  • Grandad's wasteland: for city dwellers, here are some ideas for maintaining your land in the countryside

    Cemagref Éditions’ collection of publications enriches Agate

    What do "The forest and its enemies", "Combine harvesters" and "High altitude lakes" have in common? Not much, apparently, apart from a common publisher, Cemagref, the French national centre of agricultural machinery, rural engineering, water and forestry, one of the forerunners of INRAE, whose original collection of publications is now available on Agate.

     

  • Flooding by the Isère river at Veurey
    Natural Risks

    History of flooding in France since the 6th century

    As soon as it came out in 1858, Maurice Champion's major work "Les inondations en France du VIe siècle à nos jours" (Floods in France from the 6th century to the present day) caught the interest of engineers and administrators. For the first time, it provided a detailed historical overview of flooding in the five major French river basins.

  • Glacier
    Mountainous Area

    The Tairraz family, a dynasty of mountaineer photographers

    Three men from the Tairraz family, mountain guides from Chamonix, photographed the Mont Blanc glaciers every year from 1891 through to 1933. Their photographs provide invaluable data for tracking the evolution of the glaciers from the industrial revolution to the 20th century. Today, they are greatly threatened by global warming.

     

     

  • Les dirigeants de l’Inra accueillis à l’Institut de biologie et de pathologie de la reproduction, à Sofia (Bulgarie) en juin 1967.
    Agriculture

    At the service of agriculture: photography in the INRA Bulletin

    INRA's Bulletin was published from 1962 to 1978, as part of the National Institute for Agricultural Research's internal communication. Photography appeared in the magazine in 1965, showing the people, places and research of the institute, which was mandated to bring progress to agriculture.

  • Pear designs (Le Jardin fruitier du Muséum - 1871-1872)
    Agriculture

    To name a thousand times this marvel that is... the pear

    Which do you prefer? The Duchesse d'Angoulême or the Muddied? The Frangipane, the Rocket, the Swiss Breeches or the Forest Melt? The exotic or the unusual, the rustic or the aristocratic? The romantic, perhaps? Let us take a stroll through the Museum Orchard!

     

  • vol 3. pl 91. Callipterus Querceus and Castaneae
    Entomology

    M. Buckton and the English aphids

    It is somewhat easy to dismiss aphids as annoying little pests that kill our houseplants and roses. There are, however, a number of books that have the power to broaden our horizons.

  • In front of the test hall, Whitman forage press, 1899
    Agricultural Machinery

    The agricultural machinery test station, a photographic report

    Bringing together two archives to revive one of our ancestors or: how can we revive the agricultural machinery testing station at the turn of the 20th century from old photos and an article from 1900?

  • Mountainous Area

    An exceptional collection of photographs

    The photographs presented here are the result of a close collaboration between our services and those of the Archives Nationales, which preserve part of the historical photographic record of the mountain land restoration (RTM) service.

  • Electric engine, SEMA, 1920
    Agricultural Machinery

    Agricultural machinery testing, modus operandi

    From January 1888 onwards, the agricultural machinery testing station carried out tests on agricultural equipment in order to provide farmers with reliable and verified information on the capabilities of existing equipment. Rigour and method are at the heart of this work.

  • Torrent
    Mountainous Area

    Photographing the same subject over time

    The mountain land restoration services (RTM in french) are responsible for using photography to monitor and measure the success or failure of their reforestation programmes, documented with pairs of photos taken seven, ten or fifteen years apart.