1897.] ESSAYS. 17 



tons to the acre. In the face of such statements it would seem that 

 our friend Mr. Pond must "pale his uneffectual fires." 



The fact last mentioned, the use of sewage, suggests the subject of 

 high farming, or as it has been called intensive farming, as contrasted 

 with extensive farming ; and here it may be mentioned as pertinent to 

 our subject, that 100 years ago, or a little more, the number of landed 

 proprietors in France was 150,000; at the present time there are over 

 4,000,000. In view of the change in the condition of the great majority 

 of the French peoi)le, it is not strange that the enthusiastic philanthro- 

 pist, Wendell Phillips, astounded and shocked the dilletanti of Boston 

 and Cambridge when, in his Phi Beta oration, he declared that the French 

 Revolution was "the greatest, the most unmixed, the most unstained 

 and wholly perfect blessing Europe has had in modern times, unless we 

 may possibly except the Reformation and the invention of printing." 



And so far have they carried the intensive method that, near the 

 city of Paris, the rent of some market-gardeners is $126 per acre. 

 Even at this rate the French market-gardeners pay an "octroi" on all 

 their products that go to Paris, exporting largely their crops to Lon- 

 don. And it is also true that while in England, Germany and Russia 

 the farmers say that wheat raising is unprofitable ; while even in New 

 England and New York we have given up wheat raising as a lost art, 

 — yet in France on their small farms they have doubled the acreage 

 and quadrupled the yield of wheat within the last 50 or 60 years. 



I will mention one more instance of successful high farming, that of 

 the district of Lafalle in East Flanders. The population consists of 

 30,000 farmers, who, besides raising their own food, export agricul- 

 tural products which enable them to pay rents to the amount of $15 

 to $25 per acre. Their regulation crops are from four to five times as 

 large as those of the fertile lands of Texas, Georgia and Illinois. On 

 their little territory of 37,000 acres, two-thirds of which area is under 

 cereals, flax and potatoes, they keep 10,720 neat cattle, 3,800 sheep, 

 1,815 horses and 6,550 hogs. The district contains a population 

 denser than that of England : yet, notwithstanding the ever-increasing 

 rents, all the inhabitants are well fed and well-to-do ; and this is sim- 

 ply owing to high cultivation. 



CULTURE UNDER GLASS. 



I have left but little time and space for this branch of the subject, 

 and will allude to it very briefly. We are apt to think of those Chan- 

 nel islands, Jersey and Guernsey, as only the habitat of the cows that 



are raised there, and otherwise of no importance ; whereas their fields 

 2 



