102 CANALS. 



obtained from the northern slopes of the Sancerrois Hills that limit this 

 district on the south-east. Nearly 200,000 acres have been turned into a 

 pine forest ; drainage of stagnant waters and proper irrigation has made 

 good pasture land of much that lies in proximity to the rivers running 

 through the district — the Cosson, the Beuvron, and the Sauldre. But 

 nothing could have been done to fit the land for the culture of cereals and 

 other more profitable products had not the Canal de Sauldre been cut 

 right into the heart of the district from a more favoured country yielding 

 the calcareous elements of which the soil of the Sologne was wholly de- 

 prived. For forty years the transport of ' marne,' or calcareous marl, has 

 gone steadily on, and it is now computed that over 1,000,000 tons of this 

 fertiliser have been carried by it and distributed over the poorer adjacent 

 lands. The canal has been the main agent in the transformation of the 

 country to a distance of 10 and 12 miles from its banks. Pastures enriched 

 produce now from 30 to 35 hectolitres of hay per hectare ; wheat is grown, 

 and a return of from 25 to 35 bushels an acre obtained upon land that 

 before only yielded the poorest crop of rye ; beetroot and artichokes are 

 amongst the latter crops of the district, and stock is fattened on many of the 

 farms for the Paris market. The influence of the canal upon the agriculture 

 of the district is such that we are told the selling value of land increases or 

 decreases as it approaches or recedes from the banks of the canal, that is, 

 from the means of obtaining at a low cost of transport the ' improvements ' 

 of which, from the poverty of the soil, it stands in need. It is not surprising 

 to hear after this that the general cry of the inhabitants of the district is for 

 an extension of the canal to the banks of the Loire and the Cher, so that 

 they may be put into communication by water with the navigable portions 

 of those rivers. So far the chief function of the canal has been to bring 

 them the fertilisers by which their land has been reclaimed ; what they ask 

 for now is its extension to assist them to carry off and find markets for its 

 heavier products." Mr. O'Neill, in the same report, gives two striking illus- 

 trations of the practical elimination of distance and the cheapening of raw 

 materials by the easy and cheap communication afforded by suitable canal 

 communication. These are well worth quoting in full, as they throw light 

 on some of the arguments in favour of waterway transit to which attention 

 has already been called : — 



"Amongst our [i.e. of France] imports (writes Consul O'Neill), is a consider- 

 able quantity of feldspar from Norway. The chief part of this feldspar goes 

 by lighters, of course, into the heart of France, into the Department Loiret. 

 There, upon the banks of the Canal de Briar, is an immense button manu- 

 factory. Over 1,500 men are employed in it, and the sewing of the buttons 

 on the cards on which they are sold all the world over gives occupation to 

 many thousands of women and children in the surrounding country. Crushed 

 up, and — curious detail — set with milk, for which purpose more than 100 

 cows are kept upon the premises, this feldspar from the mountains of Norway 

 serves as the material from which buttons are made. On observing this 

 singular importation, one naturally asks, not without surpnse, ' How is it 

 that a manufactory in the heart of France is importing feldspar from Norway 

 when the granites and other feldspathic rocks of the central mountains of the 

 country must provide this raw material in abundance?' All the feldspars, the 

 common feldspar (orthoclase), lime feldspar (anorthite), and soda feldspar 

 (albite), are to be found in abundance in the French central mountains. There 

 can be nothing, therefore, peculiar to the feldspar of Norway, nothing in the 



