394 



Forests in Germany. 



are made 10 the orchard area of California. According to the 

 Assessors' Reports furnished to the Board of Equalisation in 

 1897, there were then 29,402,287 fruit trees in the State 

 occupying an area of 452,252 acres, and including, inter alia, 

 1,577,000 apple trees ; 1,520,000 pear trees, 5,522,000 peach 

 trees, and 2,745,000 apricot trees. 



[Foreign Office Report, Annual Series, No. 2,349. Price i\d.'\ 



Forests in Germany. 



The forests of Germany cover an area of 34,470,000 acres, 

 or 26 per cent, of the entire land surface. A portion of the 

 forests cover the poorer, chiefly sandy, soils of the north 

 German plains, or occupy the rough, hilly, and steeper 

 mountain lands of the numerous smaller mountain systems, 

 and a small portion of the northern slopes of the Alps. 

 They are distributed rather evenly over the entire Empire. 

 Prussia, with 66 per cent, of the entire land surface, possesses 

 23-5 per cent, of forest land, while the rest of the larger States 

 have each over 30 per cent, except Saxony, which has 27 per 

 cent. With regard to the smaller districts of Prussia, 

 Bavaria, and the smaller States, it is found that out of 64 

 provinces and districts 18 have less than 20 per cent, forest ; 

 18 have from 20 to 29 per cent.; 23, including the greater 

 part of the country, have from 30 to 39 per cent. ; and 5 of 

 the smaller districts have from 40 to 44 per cent, of forest 

 The districts containing less than 20 per cent, of forests are, as 

 might be supposed, mostly fertile farming districts, in which 

 the arable land forms over 40 per cent, of the soil, but they 

 also include districts like Hanover and Luneburg, where 

 poor, flat lands have been deforested and gradually trans- 

 formed into heaths, and where an accumulation of bog-iron 

 ore and other obstacles render the attempts at reforestation 

 difficult, expensive, and unsatisfactory. 



Agricultural Labourers and Wages in Belgium. 



According to the last Belgian agricultural census, the 

 agricultural population of that country in 1895 numbered 



