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CHAPTER V. 



THE GROSS PRODUCE. 



WE now come to value the total production of the two 

 agricultures. This valuation is no easy task, especially 

 when it becomes a question of comparison. 



Even the best statistics contain repetitions. Thus, in 

 the statistics for France, animal products figure three 

 times first, as return from meadows and pastures, then 

 as return from live animals, and, lastly, return from 

 slaughtered animals. These three form but one : it is 

 the return from slaughtered animals that must be taken, 

 adding to it the value of the milk for the cows, that of 

 the wool for the sheep, and the cost of the horses reared 

 up to the age when they are usually sold say three years 

 old ; all the rest is but a series of means of production, 

 by which we arrive at the real produce namely, that 

 which serves for human consumption, whether upon the 

 farm itself, or beyond it. It is no less incorrect to take 

 into account the quantity of grain necessary for renewing 

 seed. Seed is not a product, but a capital ; the land does 

 not give it until after it has received it. Lastly, it is out of 

 the question to include, as do some statistics, the value of 

 straw and manure. Manure, with one important excep- 

 tion, which I shall mention by-and-by, is evidently a mean 

 of production ; and as for straw, it constitutes a product 



