734 
Notes on the Cultivation of Tobacco 
In Belgium the Agricultural Statistics are taken only at long 
and somewhat uncertain intervals. The last census was taken 
in 1880, and the previous one in 1866, in which year there were 
1694 hectares of land returned as planted with tobacco, while at 
the more recent census the returns showed only 1576 hectares 
under that crop. 
In France, the cultivation of the tobacco-plant is entirely 
under the control of that department of the State which is 
known as the Regie. Farmers who wish to grow tobacco send 
in their applications, and, subject to certain reservations as to 
minimum size of plots, they are allowed to do so under the 
supervision of the officers of the Regie, known as " Controllers 
of cultivation." The Regie fixes the total of its requirements, 
and the prices which the State will pay for the cured tobacco, 
according to quality, one year in advance ; and then allots the 
total amongst the several departments, partly according to the 
applications sent in, and partly according to the known suita- 
bility of each department to produce the quality of tobacco 
required. As already mentioned, it is unnecessary in this paper 
to consider more than two of the tobacco-growing districts of 
France, namely, the " Nord " and the " Pas de Calais." The 
following Tables (pp. 735 and 736) for the ten years 1863-72, 
will be found very instructive, as illustrating the French system 
and its results. It will be seen that while in the " Pas de Calais " 
the cultivation of tobacco was practically stationary as regards 
the number of growers, and only slightly diminishing as regards 
the area of land planted, yet in the " Departement du Nord " 
the ten years showed a continual decrease both in the number 
of cultivators and in the acreage of land planted. The official 
explanation of this fact is, that " La diminution de la culture 
dans ce departement tient au developpement exceptionnel qu'y 
ont pris les cultures industrielles." Without wishing to lay too 
much stress upon what happened in the North of France between 
ten and twenty years ago, this statement, made on official autho- 
rity, seems to show that other industrial crops were then, at least, 
more profitable to the farmer than tobacco. I shall endeavour 
to show what has taken place since the issue of the Parliamentary 
return from which the two annexed Tables are extracted. 
If we pass over an interval of ten years we find that, as 
regards the Departement du Nord, the quantity of tobacco 
demanded by the Government and that produced by the farmers 
had not appreciably altered, while the number of cultivators, the 
acreage of land planted, and the average price, were all within 
range of the figures for the previous years. In the " Pas- de 
Calais," on the contrary, it will be seen that there was an 
important increase in the number of cultivators, the extent of 
