434 
pean farmers increased, during the five years ending with 1872, from 
$1,022,683 to $1,590,136, that of implements belonging to Arabs 
decreased from $366, 637 to $303,126. Arab farmers are gradually get- 
ting out of the traces and resuming their wild, nomadic life, and their 
places are taken by Europeans. 
The principal cereals cultivated are hard and soft wheat, rye, barley, 
oats, maize, beans, and sorghum. ‘The wheat has a special value in 
European markets for the manufacture of vermicelli and other patés. 
The favorite barley is the variety called by botanists Hordeum hexarti- 
cum, but other varieties have been successfully grown. It is mostly 
used as horse-feed, but the poorer classes of people also use it. It is 
grown also as a forage crop, and is well adapted to malting. 
Sheep husbandry is one of the most profitable branches of farming in 
this country, utilizing those high, barren plateaus where cultivation, to 
any great extent, is impracticable. Before the conquest the Arabs de- 
rived but little benefit from their flocks beyond personal subsistence 
and clothing, on account of lack of market facilities. But the establish- 
ment of a settled government by France has opened up this industry to 
the markets of the civilized world and has given a regular value to its 
products. Of all classes of farm-animals, including horses, asses, mules, 
camels, cattle, sheep, goats, and swine, the European colonists, in 1872, 
owned 392,975, and the Arabs 9,774,852. During the six years previous, 
those of the Europeans had increased 46,809, while those of the Arabs 
had decreased 3,688,979. 
The Alpha fiber, one of the most important productions of the soil, 
covers 10,000,000 acres. Its value is beginning to be appreciated as a 
paper-making material. It is supposed that the crop raised in Algeria 
can be made to equal in economic value at least three-fourths of the 
rags gathered in the civilized world. In 1873 it was exported to the 
extent of 45 000 tons, which rose in 1874 to 58,000 tons, and promised 
by the close ‘of 1875 to reach 60,000 tons for "that year. Increasing 
facilities of transportation, through railways, will secure the transit of ‘ 
this material to the coast in increasing quantities in years to come, and 
bring production and consumption into close relations with each other. 
The forests are valuable, but are liable to destractive conflagrations. 
They produce several species of oak, especially the cork-oak, the Aleppo 
pine, the cedar, and other valuable species of timber. The European 
colonists are being largely re-enforced by immigration from Alsace and 
Lorraine, and their villages are being extended to the forest districts. 
This will render the cutting and marketing of timber a more important 
interest in years to come. 
