64 



FOREIGN OFFICE REPORTS 



[June 1896. 



FOREIGN OFFICE REPORTS. 

 Agriculture in Western France. 



The Board have received from the Foreign Office a copy of 

 Mr. R. S. Warburton's Annual Report for 1895 on the trade 

 of the Consular district of La Rochelle. 



In this report it is stated that the argument, which is sometimes 

 used, that the wheat crop of France must pay, because the area 

 under that cereal is not diminishing, is a mistaken one, the 

 fact being that French farmers sow wheat because they must 

 grow something, and as yet have not been able to find anything 

 to replace it, though many other crops have been suggested and 

 tried. Not only do they lose on wheat -growing, but they lose 

 heavily, and the advantage they have over British farmers in 

 the protective duty of 12s. 3d. per quarter is counterbalanced 

 by the much smaller return per acre. 



In order to furnish some idea of the losses on wheat-growing 

 of ordinary farmers, the financial results are quoted of the 

 farming operations in 1895 at one of the State schools, where 

 the land is good, and where the system of farming taught is that 

 which produces the largest return at the lowest cost. 



On this farm last year (which was a fairly good one) they 

 grew a field of wheat of 50 acres, and their books showed a loss 

 on the whole crop of 261. 3s. 6d. The return per acre was 

 remarkably good, comparatively, having been 24 bushels to the 

 acre, against 14 bushels for the rest of the departement, and 18 

 bushels for the whole of France ; the most economical system of 

 labour was employed, and still the loss was over 10s. per acre. 



What must it, therefore, be in the case of farms which (as 

 many of them do) return only 10 bushels per acre, and where the 

 labour is of the most primitive and costly description, scythes 

 and reaping-hooks being used to cut the corn, and the winnowing 

 done by old-fashioned hand or horse machines ? 



In answer to the question how farmers in France manage to 

 hold on as well as they do, it is stated, first of all, that the 

 expenditure for labour and living is very small, the whole work 

 on a fairly large farm being often done by the farmer and his 

 family, the women working in the fields as well as the men, 

 while (with the exception of bread, which is very cheap) the 

 farmer lives on the produce of the farm, being content to put up 

 with a life of hardship and privation to which few working men 

 in England could reconcile themselves. But besides this, some 

 branches of farming have been paying better than corn-growing. 

 Breeding and rearing stock has not been unprofitable latterly, 

 and this is carried on by almost every farmer, however small 

 his holding, even though he may have no grazing land, as maize 



