358 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



square mile, and has 18,200,000 engaged in agricultural 

 pursuits. Germany, with 45,200,000, supports a population 

 of 213 to the square mile, and has 18,800,000 engaged in 

 agricultural pursuits. Great Britain, with 35,200,000, sup- 

 ports a population of 291 to the square mile. In Germany 

 the almost universal testimony of those in charge of the 

 schools, is of the beneficial effects upon the peasants. Bet- 

 ter rotations have been put in practice, hand-labor has given 

 place to improved machinery, the number of acres under 

 cultivation has been multiplied, the product per acre has 

 increased two-fold, a great variety has been added to the 

 list of products, and the adaptation of crops to soil has been 

 more carefully studied. 



France has become a vast garden, — " the best cultivated 

 country," according to the Banker's Magazine of New York, 

 " in the world ; whose revenue from its land alone is esti- 

 mated at $550,000,000," and whose exports in 1884, of articles 

 of food and cereals, footed up to $165,302,200, and its wines 

 to $47,450,000 more. Its agriculture certainly pays, for one- 

 half of its population are engaged in its pursuit. Next to the 

 United States and Russia it has become the greatest wheat- 

 producing country in the world. Its forests, carefully super- 

 intended by pupils from the great school of Nancy, yield it 

 an annual revenue of $50,000,000. The denuded slopes of 

 the Alps and the Pyrenees, down which poured the mountain 

 torrents, filling up and covering over the fertile plains with 

 coarse debris, have been covered with smiling verdure to 

 their very summits, and the waters have been led captive 

 into the channels prepared for them. The sand dunes on 

 the west coast, advancing at the rate of 14 feet per annum, 

 and transplanting inland 90 cubic yards of sand per yard of 

 coast line, annually, have been arrested in their course, and 

 224,154 acres have been reclaimed and covered with trees 

 and shrubs.* The cultivation of the sugar beet, carried to 

 the highest perfection, has twice saved the country from 

 national bankruptcy. 



In England, fifty ^ears ago, the normal yield of wheat per 

 acre was thirteen bushels, the latest returns make it 31.24 

 per acre. So, too, the hay crop. By a judicious use of 



♦Consular Report. Forestry of Europe, 1887. 



