,Sept. J895.] 



FOREIGN OFFICE REPOP.TS. 



195 



growing the lower grades of fruit, which would injure the sales 

 of our main crop, should be utilised in every possible way. 



" Thousands upon thousands of bushels of early fall apples go 

 to waste every year, which, if taken in time and dried, would 

 yield a large income. One bushel of ordinary apples, that would 

 not sell for more than 10 to 25 cents (5d. to Is. O^d) per bushel, 

 with the added labour of paring and evaporating, would be 

 worth 75 cents (Ss.) at the present prices of the evaporated 

 product ; and cheap home-made evaporators can be made by 

 anyone skilled in the use of tools. 



" If the product is not large enough to warrant the use of an 

 evaporator, all waste fruit should be fed to stock. It has been 

 shown by repeated analyses that apples contain a food value, for 

 cows and horses, of from 10 to 20 cents per bushel ; and the cost 

 of gathering as they fall can be but little. 



In addition to the value of the fallen apples for food, the 

 fact that many insects are destroyed when they are thus utilised 

 is of great importance, reducing the number of insects for the 

 next season, and, consequently, the cost of production of succeeding 

 crops." 



[Foreign Office Report, Annual Series, No. 1541. Price Id.] 



The Value of Canals to Agriculture in France. 



The Foreign Office has issued a report, compiled by Lieutenant 

 H. E. O'Neill, Her Majesty's Consul at Rouen, which contains 

 some interesting information, on the waterways of the basin of 

 the River Seine. 



In this report it is stated tlat it is impossible to illustrate by 

 a parallel from the United Kingdom, the excellence of the water 

 routes that radiate throughout the country from the lower 

 Seine, but in point of distance it may be likened to the 

 foreign imports required by Carlisle and Penzance reachino- 

 those cities by canal from the port of London. To show the 

 difficulties surmounted in the construction of these waterways, it 

 is mentioned that in the case of goods delivered at Roanne and 

 on the banks of the Saone (by the Canal de Bourgogne) the 

 canals have been carried over elevations greater than the 

 Cotswold Hills at their highest point, or the Weaver Hills of 

 Staffordshire, and equal to the Cornish mountains at the peak 

 of Rough Tor. 



As an instance of the value of canals to the agricultural 

 interest, reference is made to the effect of the opening of the 

 Canal de Sauldre upon the development of the unfertile district 

 of France situated in the great bend made westward by the 

 River Loire, which- is known as the Sologne, "la triste 

 Sologne." Nearly 1,000,000 acres, comprising no inconsiderable 

 portion of three departments — Loir et Cher, Cher, and Loiret 



