104 THE POSSIBILITIES 



The net result of all that is, that on nearly 

 33,000,000 acres of cultivable land the food is 

 grown for one-third part only of the population 

 (more than two-thirds of the food it consumes is 

 imported), and we may say accordingly that, 

 although nearly two-thirds of the territory is 

 cultivable, British agriculture provides home- 

 grown food for each 125 or 135 inhabitants only 

 per square mile (out of 466). In other words, 

 nearly three acres of the cultivable area are re- 

 quired to grow the food for each person. Let 

 us then see what is done with the land in France 

 and Belgium. 



Now, if we simply compare the average thirty 

 bushels per acre of wheat in Great Britain with 

 the average nineteen to twenty bushels grown in 

 France within the last ten years, the comparison 

 is all in favour of these islands ; but such aver- 

 ages are of little value because the two systems 

 of agriculture are totally different in the two 

 countries. The Frenchman also has his picked 

 and heavily manured "twenty-five to thirty 

 acres " in the north of France and in Ile-de- 

 France, and from these picked acres he obtains 

 average crops ranging from thirty to thirty- 

 three bushels.* However, he sows with wheat, 



* That is, thirty to thirty -three bushels on the average ; 

 forty bushels in good farms, and fifty in the best. The area 



