THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 55 



France yields the food for 170 inhabitants per square 

 mile (out of 188), that is, for forty persons more, per 

 square mile, than this country.* 



It is thus apparent that the comparison with France 

 is not so much in favour of this country as it is said 

 to be ; and it will be still less favourable when we come, 

 in our next chapter, to horticulture. As to the com- 

 parison with Belgium, it is even more striking the 

 more so as the two systems of culture are similar in 

 both countries. To begin with, in Belgium we also find 

 an average crop of twenty-seven and eight-tenths 

 bushels of wheat to the acre ; but the area given to wheat 

 is five times as big as Great Britain, in comparison 

 to the cultivable area, and the cereals cover almost one 

 half of the land available for culture, t The land is so 

 well cultivated that the average crops for the years 1889- 



* Each 1000 acres of French territory are disposed of as follows : 376 

 acres are left under wood, coppice, communal grazing grounds, etc., and 

 624 acres are treated as " cultivable ". Out of each " cultivable " 624 

 acres, 128 are under meadows (now irrigated to a great extent), ninety- 

 two under bare fallow and various cultures, 272 under cereals, eighty- 

 three under green and industrial crops, forty-seven under vineyards. No 

 less than 146 acres are under wheat, which yields twenty-eight to thirty 

 bushels in two departments, twenty-six bushels in twelve departments. 



On the whole, more than seventeen bushels per acre is the average in 

 one half of the country, and less than seventeen bushels in the other half. 



As to cattle, we find in Great Britain 6,353,336 cattle (i.e., nineteen 

 head per each 100 acres of the cultivable area), including in that 

 number over 1,250,000 calves under one year, and 25,792,195 sheep (i.e., 

 seventy-nine sheep per 100 acres of the same). In France we find 

 12,879,240 cattle (sixteen head per each 100 acres of cultivable area) and 

 only 20,721,850 sheep (twenty-five sheep per 100 acres of the same). In 

 other words, the proportion of horned cattle is nearly the same in both 

 countries (nineteen head and sixteen head per 100 acres), a considerable 

 difference appearing in favour of this country only as to the number of 

 sheep (seventy-nine as against twenty-five). The heavy imports of hay, 

 oil-cake, oats, etc., into this country must, however, not be forgotten, 

 because, for each head of cattle which lives on imported food, eight sheep 

 can be grazed, or be fed with home-grown fodder. As to horses, both 

 countries stand on nearly the same footing. 



f Out of each 1000 acres of the territory, 673 are cultivable, and 327 are 

 left as uncultivable. Of the former, 317 acres are given to cereals, 182 to 

 green crops and grasses under rotation ; 121 acres are given to wheat and 

 wheat mixed with rye (ninety-four to pure wheat). Moreover, upon eacli 

 sixty-three acres, out ot 1000, catch crops of carrots, mangold and swedes 

 are obtained. 



