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The private writings of cultivators and the like provide probably one of the best tools to trace in detail the history of agricultural change. Thus, the Journal d’Avully by astronomer Jacques-André Mallet is a direct witness to the activities of a dynamic elite of owner-cultivators from the Geneva region. This elite was a close observer of the climate, used agronomic theory and was deeply committed to agricultural progress from the second half of the 18th century on.