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those of the mountains, the Liebenburger, a mountain race, yellow and brown in color, 
small, compact, with short horns. The plains cattle are alert in movement, hardy, 
enduring changes of climate, and fattening readily. In Hungary proper there are 
1,072 sheep to every 1,000 of the population. This is a larger proportion, in comparison 
with population, than is found elsewhere in Europe. The increase has been 33 per 
cent. since 1857. The number of sheep in 1870 was 15,077,000; of cattle, 5,279,000; of 
horses, 2,158,800; of swine, 4,443,300. 
The great industries are flour-manufacturing, pork-packing, and grain-selling, mak- 
ing the country appear more like home to a western American than any other part of 
Europe, and the great maize-fields do not detract from the similarity ; but the people, 
their language, their manners, their methods of industrial labor, and their agricultural 
machinery are all strange, and many of the comparisons instituted by the Westerner 
are not favorable to the progressiveness of the country. Still he will find our reapers 
and mowers there, and coming in yet more rapidly, while the old ladies of the harvest- 
field look on with sorrow, wringing their hands, with tears in their eyes, as they be- | 
hold for the first time an innovation which they fear may take the bread from their 
own mouths. 
IraLy.—In passing rapidly through Northern Italy among the most striking indus- 
trial features of the country was the vast system of irrigation in operation there, by 
which the clear Alpine waters are swiftly conveyed in broad and deep channels through 
every portion of the productive area, and distributed by a net-work of minor streams, 
giving refreshment, verdure, and fruitage to fields that would otherwise be dry and 
dreary in their comparative barrenness. There was almost a monotony in the appear- 
ance of the fields, though there was variety in unity from Trieste to Venice, from Ve- 
rona to Milan and Arona, at the base of the mountains, an almost continuous field of. 
maize, broken by parallel lines of the mulberry, which were kept closely trimmed and 
hung with festoons of vines. Thus three crops are grown on the same land, furnishing 
food, drink, and’clothing. Polenta, a sort of hasty-pudding, appears to be the princi- 
pal food of large numbers; it is used everywhere, sold on the markets ent in slices, 
taken for lunch in the field or at home, and always acceptable. Perhaps no other food 
could so well support so large a population. 
FrANCE.—This distracted country fills an important place in the production of Eu- 
rope. Itisacountry noted for scientific experiments in agriculture; it has 43 farm- 
schools under the supervision of the government, several official veterinary and other 
establishments for the advancement of rural industry. It makes a profiable specialty 
of sugar-beet production, and about 4 per cent. of its territory is devoted to the culti- 
vation of the vine. The cereals are grown in far larger proportion to cultivated area 
than in Great Britain, but their yield per acre is little more than half as great, and 
not much greater than our own rate of yield. The practice of Great Britain is re- 
versed : instead of two acres in restorative to one of exhaustive crops, the exhaustive 
area is two to one. With all this prominence given to bread-producing grains, there 
is a scarcity of animals and domestic fertilizers, and the result is a frequent necessity 
for a small import of breadstufis. Of live stock, the horse receives the most attention, 
and the race of Normandy is still sought for export to foreign countries. 
AGRICULTURAL TENDENCIES, 
No intelligent observer, in taking even a cursory view of the agriculture of the Old 
World, can fail to see that the agricultural mind is active, inventive, as well as recep- 
tive; that more of energy, method, and business acumen are being infused into rural 
industry ; that the tendencies of progress are, many of them, in the same direction in 
which earnest minds in this country have been pushing, perhaps more impulsively, 
possibly not so successfully. I will name of these tendencies a few only : 
First. More liberal and general provision for fertilization. It is seen that the lands 
naturally the most fertile are not those on which the largest crops are actually pro- 
duced, and that the fertilizing resources of earth and sea and air are sufiicient to con- 
vert into a garden a desert of sand. And while commercial or chemical stimulants are 
‘found in some eases profitable, it is seen that better results at a lower cost may be se- 
cured by the production and feeding of roots and forage plants to farm-animals, and a 
wise economy of accessible and inexpensive local material for ultimate plant-food. 
Second. More judicious and economical drafts upon stores of plant-food in the soil. 
Local causes may make a temporary demand and an enhanced price, and the result in 
the next season is an unnecessary production and an unremunerative price. ‘This is an 
unnecessary waste of plant-food. A constant succession of plowed or hoed crops, espec- 
ially under the exposure of a hot sun, is found to dissipate rapidly important elements 
of plant-growth. <A proper regard for rotations, which keep the surface covered with 
a carpet of green at least half the time, will greatly economize such waste. Cool judg- 
ment, exact system, constant vigilance, enable the farmer to get more money and even 
larger production from the same expenditure of plant-material in his soil. 
Third. Increase of labor-saving appliances and implements, and the substitution of 
