INTRODUCTION. 



No surer test of the degree of agricultural advance- 

 ment of a country can be found than the relative acre- 

 age of land laid down to grass and devoted to tillage. 

 Wherever the grass is most abundant there is the 

 highest farming. This statement is most strkingly estab- 

 lished by comparing the agricultural systems of France and 

 England. In France 53 per cent, of the tillable land is 

 annually sown in some kind of grain, while in England the 

 grain-bearing per cent, of land is only 25. On the other 

 hand, while France has but 22 per cent, in grass, England 

 has 50. Notwithstanding this difference in the amount of 

 land devoted to grain, the yield of wheat to each inhabitant 

 is almost identical in the two countries. Every acre of 

 grain land in England receives, on an average, the manure 

 from the animals fed off three acres of grass. In France, 

 on the contrary, the manure made from each acre of grass 

 has to be spread over 2J acres of grain. In other words, 

 each acre of grain in England gets nine loads of manure to 

 one load given to the acre in France. 



A further comparison would show that the acknowledged 

 superiority of English cattle, sheep and other domestic 

 animals, over those of France, or any other country for 

 that matter, is due more to the superiority in quality and 

 quantity of the meadows and pastures of that wonderful 

 island than to anything else. If we turn our attention to 

 other countries we shall find that the amount and character 

 of grasses grown may always be taken as a measure of the 

 degree of advancement to which their agriculture has 

 reached. It must be borne in mind that this statement 



