astonishing fact that in the year 1866 France exported 

 as much in value of eggs to England alone as Ave export- 

 ed of bacon and hams, one of our chief exports of pro- 

 visions in 1868, to all the world; that is to say, in round 

 numbers, rising of five million of dollars, while we ex- 

 ported eggs last year to the paltry number of 412 dozen. 



No man who has not had these figures brought to his 

 consideration and who has not examined the agricultural 

 productions of France, both in variety and amount, cart 

 believe that the 38 million of her inhabitants on a terri- 

 tory so small as to give only three and a half acres to 

 an inhabitant, could vie, in agricultural productions, of 

 all that goes to make up the necessaries of living and 

 national wealth, save cotton and tobacco, with a nation 

 like ours of about the same number of inhabitants, 

 whose territory gives more than 50 acres to each inhabi- 

 tant, or nearly seventeen times as much land for cultiva- 

 tion, and from this estimate we exclude Alaska, of which 

 none know the extent save the walrus and Polar bears. 

 Ot course, a very large portion of our lands, say three- 

 fourths, are substantially uninhabited ; but these are 

 always reckoned when we make up our national re- 

 sources. 



Nor is the common idea a true one that the people of 

 France are poor, or that our people are drawn away from 

 • farming into other and more profitable occupation, so 

 that France does not more than equal us in the value 

 and amount of her industries — all her industries as com- 

 pared with ours ; for in the year 1868 her imports 

 amounted to 679 million, and her exports to 581 million, 

 while in the same period the imports of the United 

 States were only 381 million, and the exports w^ere 441 



