THE SURVEY QUESTION IN COCHIN CHINA. 283 



For seed there must have been required, ... 1,040,000 



Average produce of each of the last two years, 26,180,000 

 Average of the years 1881 and 1882 brought 

 forward, ... ... ... ... 22,400,000 



Increase, ... 3,800,000 



There does not seem to have been any noticeable improve- 

 ment in the attention given to the land or in the choice of 

 seed, during the last three years ; the climatic conditions have 

 remained about the same, there is no reason, therefore, why 

 the return per hectare for 1883 and 1884 should have been 

 appreciably larger than that of the two preceding years. It 

 is in the extension of the area taken up for cultivation that 

 we are compelled to look for the cause of the increase in 

 value of production, the sum of which may consequently 

 enable us to calculate the extent of the accession to the area 

 planted with rice. 



The Annamites divide the paddy-fields into five classes pro- 

 ducing from 35 to 15 piculs of rice per hectare. Opened by 

 people without much capital, on land not yet sufficiently pre- 

 pared for cultivation, and in any case far inferior as regards soil 

 to the splendid paddy-lands which date from ancient times, the 

 new grain-fields may, in general, be ranked in the 3rd class, 

 that which produces 25 piculs to the hectare. The quotient 

 found by dividing 3,800,000 by 25 would give, therefore, 

 approximately the extent of land lately brought under culti- 

 vation. This would seem to be 152,000 hectares and this 

 has to be added to the total of the cultivated area as com- 

 puted by the topographical department, namely 800,000 

 hectares, in order to find out the total of the cultivated area 

 of the Colony, which may thus be put at 950,000 hectares. 



Other kinds of cultivation, with the exception, perhaps, of 

 some betel-nut gardens, are so little developed that it seems 

 useless to take them into account. 



If, then, like Messrs. Bataille and Boilloun, I were to 

 lay down 16 years as the period necessary for the completion 



