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THE GENESEE FARMER. 



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manured ones, to which nothing is to be applied. The object is simply to determine, so 

 far as one experiment can, the relative vahie of potash and soda as food for the plants. 

 Sea-water contains thirty times more soda tlian potash ; and the first named alkali may 

 be economically extracted from common salt, by the aid of caustic lime, in a compost 

 heap. The chemistry of this operation, as well as that of many others, will be explained 

 in the course of the present volume of this Journal. 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 



The folloAving interesting statistics are chiefly compiled from a French work on Political 

 Economy and Statistics for 1851 : 



WHEAT XSD ETE PKODUCED IN TUE DIFFERENT COiraTETES OF EUROPE, IN HECTOUTEES.* 



States. Wheat. Rye. 



Pranoc 80,l+?,78.3 51 ,s;ii,4fir, 



Gre,at Britain 85,473,nno l,5oo,( 



Belffium 4,091,91(5 5,4.>i,0i iC, 



Prussia 6,6S4,000 4^fil(S.{ i( Ki 



Bavaria 2,TT0,6(>T 6,41 8,514 



Bad™ 2,570,300 510,000 



Switzerkind 1,000,000 1,200,000 



Sardinian States 3,800,000 1,000,000 



Spain ■ 



Netlierlands 1,999,902 1,597.906 



Luxeraljurg 220,000 350,000 



Denmark '. . . &40,000 4,4.80,000 



ScMeswig-Holstein 886,200 1,692,600 



Sweden and Norway 342,665 5,947,820 



Stuf-e^. , Wfieat 



Kussia 19,000,000 



Meclvlenburg 622,460 



Hanover 1,320,000 



Saxony 1,100,000 



Wurtemberg 6,154,821 



Hesse 1,915,000 



Other German States 1,2.'50,000 



Austria 29,100,000 



Tuscany l,500,fH)0 



States of the Church 8,000,000 



Two Sicilies 19,997,700 



Other Italian States 3,500,000 



Portugal 8,510,000 



Greece 275,000 



Rye. 



149,750,000 

 1,200,000 

 2,000,000 

 2,337,500 

 &40,o58 

 2,200,000 

 3,500,000 

 88,710,524 

 500,000 



2,528,500 



In some of these countries, barley, oats, maize, buckwheat, peas, and beans, are 

 important staples. 



It is a note-worthy fact that, while we obtain the official agricultural statistics of most 

 of the nations of Europe for 1851 before the close of the year, those of the crops grown 

 in the United States in 1849, and taken by the census of June, 1850, we shall not get 

 till after June, 1852. The fault is in a Congress AvhoUy devoted to party politics. 

 Every sensible man knows that it is not necessary to wait three years after the harvest 

 of 1849 before the public can learn the amount of said harvest. 



The careful study of agricultural statistics is both instructive and interesting, after one 

 has acquired a taste for researches of this kind. If we convert the hectolitres of wheat 

 and rye grown in France and Great Britain into bushels, and consider each in reference 

 to the agriculture of both nations, it will be seen that while England excels in tillage, 

 France greatly excels in kushandrij. France produces 224,402,453 bushels of wheat a 

 year, and 145,139,305 bushels of rye. England produces 99,324,400 bushels of wheat, 

 and 4,200,000 bushels of rye. To produce their comparatively small amount of grain,* 

 the poor husbandmen of Great Britain require about 230,000 tons of imported guano 

 and an immense quantity of oil cake, used first to feed cattle and sheep, and then as 

 manure. The good husbandmen of France require very little guano or oil cake from 

 abroad, while they annually export to England one-fourth of the bread-stuffs imported 

 into that country. The secret of French and Belgian success in grain-culture is this : 

 Their cultivators make the excreta from millions of people worth an average of five 

 dollars a head per annum, as manure. At this rate, allowing the fertilizers from six 

 millions of persons to be lost in France, and those yielded by thirty millions to be saved, 

 their commercial value to the nation is $150,000,000 a year. The general saving of the 

 elements of wheat, in France, is good husbandry, whatever may be their system of tillage. 



On the other side of the Channel, the twenty-nine millions of people habitually 

 throw away the fertilizing elements contained in their daily food. Hence the necessity 



* One IbeciolUre is two and eight-tcntlis bushels. 



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