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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

Pouy Farm is a former agricultural estate located in the municipality of Solferino, in the Landes department. Built in 1857 by Henri Crouzet, it is one of nine model farms built on Napoleon III's imperial estate between 1857 and 1861. This estate, created by the emperor after the acquisition of land from seven neighbouring communes, was designed to experiment with innovative agricultural methods, in the spirit of the law of 19 June 1857.

Henri Crouzet (1818-1880), a polytechnician and engineer of the Ponts-et-Chaussées, was appointed head of the imperial estate of Solferino. He promoted this through the creation of farms, cottages, drainage, afforestation and cultivation. Pouy's farm, which has been listed as a historic monument since December 16, 2010, illustrates this policy of agricultural modernization under the Second Empire.

The Act of 19 June 1857, adopted under Napoleon III, aimed at encouraging the improvement of agricultural practices in France. The model farms of the Solferino estate, including the Pouy estate, were used as laboratories to test new techniques, in a context where the Landes, which were then marked by uncultivated lands and moors, were the subject of ambitious agricultural and forestry transformation projects.

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