Gabriel Calloet-Kerbrat

Gabriel Calloet-Kerbrat (born between 1616 and 1620, died 1697) was a Breton lawyer and landowner who devoted the 1650s to agricultural experiment on his own estate near Lannion. He is considered to have introduced the idea of improving livestock by cross-breeding to France, and he bred sheep, goats, horses and cattle. He kept more than eight hundred beehives and developed what is described as the first known glass beehive in order to observe the bees. He also grew winter sainfoin as fodder and designed a harrow for planting it and a machine for crushing gorse into feed. By his own estimate his land yielded a third more than that of his neighbours. His later writings show direct knowledge of farming practice.