64 EUKAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



more striking. That small country, which is no larger 

 than a fourth of France, alone produces thirteen million 

 quarters of wheat, six of barley, and twelve of oats. 

 If France produced in the same ratio, her yield, deducting 

 seed, would be fifty million quarters of wheat, and seventy 

 of barley, oats, and other grain equal to at least double 

 her present production ; and we ought to obtain more, 

 considering the nature of our soil and climate, both much 

 more favourable to cereals than the soil and climate of 

 England. These facts verify this agricultural law that, 

 to reap largely of cereals, it is better to reduce than to 

 extend the breadth of land sown ; and that by giving the 

 greatest space to the forage crops, not only is a greater 

 quantity of butcher-meat, milk, and wool obtained, but 

 a larger production of corn also. France will achieve 

 similar results when she has covered her immense fallows 

 with root and forage crops, and reduced the breadth of 

 her cereals by several millions of hectares. 



In this consists the whole system of English farm- 

 ing. Nothing is more simple. A large extent of grass, 

 whether natural or artificial, occupied for the most part 

 as pasture; two roots the potato and turnip; two 

 spring cereals barley and oats ; and a winter one 

 wheat ; all these plants linked together by an alternating 

 course of cereals or white crops with forage or green 

 crops, commencing with roots or plants which require to 

 be hoed, and ending with wheat : this is the whole secret. 

 The English have discarded all other crops, such as sugar- 

 beet, tobacco, oleaginous plants, and fruits ; some because 

 the climate is unfavourable, others on account of their too 

 exhausting nature, or because they do not like unneces- 

 sarily to complicate their means of production. Two only 

 have escaped this proscription ; these are the hop in Eng- 

 land and flax in Ireland ; both are very successfully pro- 



