OF AGRICULTURE. 105 



not only the best picked out acres, but also such 

 fields on the Central Plateau and in Southern 

 France as hardly yield ten, eight and even six 

 bushels to the acre, without irrigation ; and 

 these low crops reduce the average for the whole 

 country. 



The Frenchman cultivates much that is left 

 here under permanent pasture and this is what 

 is described as his " inferiority " in agriculture. 

 In fact, although the proportion between what 

 we have named the " cultivable area " and the 

 total territory is very much the same in France 

 as it is in Great Britain (624 acres out of each 

 1,000 acres of the territory), the area under wheat 

 crops is nearly six times as great, in proportion, 

 as what it is in Great Britain (182 acres instead 

 of twenty-five or thirty, out of each 1,000 acres) : 

 the corn crops altogether cover nearly two-fifths 

 of the cultivable area (375 acres out of 1000), 

 and large areas are given besides to green 



under wheat was 16,700,000 acres in 1910, all chief corn crops 

 covering 33,947,000 acres; the cultivated area is 90,300,000 acres, 

 and the aggregate superficies of France, 130,800,000 acres. 

 About agriculture in France, see Lecouteux, Le bit, sa culture 

 extensive et intensive, 1883 ; Bisler, Physiologie et culture du ble, 

 1886 ; Boitet, Herbages et prairies naturelles, 1885 ; Baudrillart, 

 Les populations agricoles de la Normandie, 1880 ; Grandeau, 

 La production agricole en France, and L 'agriculture et les insti- 

 tutions agricoles du monde au commencement du vingti&me sticle ; 

 P. Compain, Prairies et paturages ; A. Clement, Agriculture 

 moderne, 1906 ; Aug6 Laribe, devolution de la France agricole, 

 1912; Leonce de Lavergne's last edition ; and so on. 



