433 
loss by exportation. Prices, also, have nearly doubled in twenty years, 
ranging now from $27 to $34 per head, some rare animals receiving $56. 
But the Thelemarks are not profitable as meat-producers. The bulls 
are small and insignificant, and on being fattened become sluggish and 
unserviceable in covering the cows. Hence, Ayrshire bulls have been 
used in crossing, with considerable improvement in beef-product, but 
not in milking qualities. But these mixtures of blood are not looked 
upon with popular favor, and no prizes are awarded in Thelemark to 
half-breeds. The structure of the latter more closely approximates the 
Ayrshire than the Thelemark parent. The Ayrshires in Sweden and 
Norway have, of late years, fallen into discredit, on account of their lia- 
bility to tubercular disease in that climate; but the mixed progeny has 
exhibited no such tendency. These take on weight and bring higher 
prices than the Thelemarks. A considerable export trade of this breed 
to England is one of the noticeable changes of the day. 
ALGERIAN AGRICULTURE.—The French people have never been very 
successful as colonists, but in their latest enterprise south of the Med- 
iterranean they seem to have planted a very permanent state. <A nest 
of pirates has been cleared out and the highways of civilization secured 
from destructive incursions. This is, however, not the only benefit 
which France has conferred upon the civilized world. A large area has 
been rescued from a shiftless system of agriculture and subjected to a 
higher production. The semi-nomad population is placed under a 
régime of impartial justice in all the rights of property, but the occa- 
sional outbreaks of barbarian hate are punished by extensive confisca- 
tions of land, which is allotted to old French settlers and new immi- 
grants in the proportion of one-third to the former and two-thirds to the 
latter class. This policy is increasing the proportion of civilized ele- 
ments in the population, and promises to make North Africa an im- 
portant granary of Europe. About 2,400,000 acres are now occupied for 
agricultural purposes by 117,175 French colonists, giving to each an 
~ average farm of over 20 acres. 
During 1874, 742,000 acres were sown by Europeans with cereals, 
producing about 7,900,000 bushels, or 103 bushels per acre; 28,000 
acres yielded 5,950,000 gallons of wine, or 212 gallons per acre; 2,000 
acres produced 1,320,000 pounds of oil-seed, coloring-matter, &c.; 1,458 
acres returned 546,400 pounds of cleaned cotton, or about 375 pounds 
per acre, nearly double the average of our American cotton area in 1872; 
6,924 acres yielded 5,932,000 pounds of tobacco, or over 856 pounds per 
acre; 20,314 acres yielded 8,828,324 pounds of linseed, or nearly 435 
pounds per acre. Including European and native farmers, the area in 
cereals in 1874 was 4,280,384 acres, producing 35,000,000 bushels, or 81 
bushels per acre. Of this product, 7,300,000 bushels, worth $3,000,000, 
were exported. 
The principal articles of export to Europe are cereals, linseed, vege- 
table fiber, wool, cattle, hides, oil, tobacco, canes, minerals, and a small 
quantity of silk, cotton, and madder. Algeria is essentially a pastoral 
and ecrop-raising country, but even these pursuits, with the imported 
capital, labor, and enterprise of the European colonists, are yet in their 
infancy. The average yields per acre are small for the European colo- 
nists and still smaller for the Arab, who, like an American Indian, finds 
it difficult to throw off his nomadic barbarism and settle down to regu- 
lar industry. The land is seldoin plowed to any depth, is never manured, 
and, through neglect, is becoming choked with noxious weeds and foul 
seed. The Arab element, instead of advancing in civilized industry, 
seems to be declining. While the value of implements owned by Euro- 
