OF AGRICULTURE. 147 



a new aspect to French agriculture, taken as a 

 whole. 



Much more ought to be said with regard to 

 the American competition, and therefore I must 

 refer the reader to the remarkable series of 

 articles dealing with the whole of the subject 

 which Schaeffle published in 1886 in the Zeit- 

 schrift fur die gesammte Staatswissenschaft, and 

 to the most elaborate article on the costs of 

 growing wheat all over the world which appeared 

 in April, 1887, in the Quarterly Review. These 

 articles were written at the time when American 

 competition was something new and made much 

 havoc in English agriculture, causing a fall of 

 from 30 to 50 per cent, in the rents of land 

 for agricultural purposes. But the conclusions 

 of these two writers were fully corroborated 

 by the yearly reports of the American Board of 

 Agriculture, and Schaeffle's previsions were 

 fully confirmed by the subsequent reports of 

 Mr. J. R. Dodge. It appeared from these works 

 that the fertility of the American soil had been 

 grossly exaggerated, as the masses of wheat which 

 America sent to Europe from its north-western 

 farms were grown on a soil the natural fertility 

 of which is not higher, and often lower, than the 

 average fertility of the unmanured European 

 soil. The Casselton farm in Dakota, with its 



