MANIA FOR LARGE FARMS. 7 



Empire of France, with not so much area as the State of Texas, 

 raises more wheat, in quantity, than the United States of 

 America, all told, reckoning from Alaska to Florida and from 

 Texas to Maine ; the area of France being only 207,480 square 

 miles, or 132 million acres, while Texas contains 237,321 square 

 miles, or 154 million acres. And yet the product of wheat in 

 France, in the year 1868, was 350 million bushels ; the total 

 product of wheat in the United States for the same year was 

 only about 240 million. 



So far from our supplying the markets of the world with 

 wheat, in the year 1867, we sent to England only four million 

 hundred weight of wheat, or about nine million of dollars in 

 value, while France exported to England eleven million dollars' 

 worth of butter alone, to spread on the bread made from our 

 wheat, or to speak less lightly, France sent more value in butter 

 to England than we did in all kinds of breadstuffs. 



Again, we go back to the year 1860, where only we can get 

 accurate statistics of the products of the United States and the 

 products of France : let me call your attention to the following 

 remarkable but reliable statistics of French agriculture, France 

 then produced 230 million bushels of oats against our 170 mil- 

 lion ; 70 million bushels of rye against our 20 million ; 60 mil- 

 lion bushels of barley against our 12 million ; and 32 million 

 bushels of buckwheat against our 12 million. Nor was she 

 without the products of grazing and pasture land, which we 

 suppose to be the necessity requiring our extended farms. She 

 had 4 million horses and mules against our 4 million and a 

 quarter ; 12 million of neat cattle against our 13 million ; 30 

 million of sheep against our 24 million, and 6 million of swine 

 against our 16 million. 



As an example of what may be the profits of the smaller 

 industries of farming, which, by the farmers of the United 

 States, was reckoned almost valueless, it is an astonishing fact 

 that in the year 1866 France exported as much in value of eggs 

 to England alone as we exported of bacon and hams, one of our 

 chief exports of provisions, in 1868, to all the world ; that is to 

 say, in round numbers, rising of five million of dollars, while 

 we exported eggs last year to the paltry number of 412 

 dozen. 



No man who has not had these figures brought to his consid- 



