785 
IFlotes, Communications, anb 
IRexuews. 
NOTES ON FRENCH AGRICULTURE. 
The Bulletin de la Societe des Agriculteurs de, France of Septem- 
ber 15, 1894, contains so many subjects of importance to English 
agriculturists that a sketch of its contents may be of interest. Its 
obituary notices include an article from the pen of M. R. Lavolde 
on the loss the society has suffered from the death of the Comte de 
Paris, who had been a member since 1873, and was himself a practical 
agriculturist. A report of the Permanent Commission on Agri- 
cultural Industries highly commends a simple machine for spraying 
flour mills with an insecticide. In an address by M. Le Tresor de 
la Rocque to the National Congress of Agricultural Syndicates the 
author maintains that cheap labour or cheap land has more to do 
with the fall in the price of cereals than the decline in the value of 
silver, and shows that if a bimetallic agreement were arrived at 
among the principal States of the world it would have no permanent 
effect on the price of silver unless the production of silver were 
restricted by all silver- mining countries. He gives an interesting 
table intended to show that the labouring man would be the 
principal sufferer if foreign corn and foreign wine caused all land 
to be laid down to grass or turned to woodland, for whilst per 
hectare ( = 2a. lr. 35p.) wine-growing occupied a man 57 days, 
Sugar beet . occupied 42 days | Hay meadows . occupied G days 
Corn .... „ 22 „ | Grazing land . . . „ 2 „ 
He quotes figures to show how serious the emigration from rural 
districts to towns in France has become. The mortality in the 
towns is 27 or 28 per 1,000, as against 20 per 1,000 in the country, 
and this with the emigration to foreign lands is a serious cause of 
depopulation. Out of 30,000 town-born conscripts 20,000 are re- 
jected for the army, though the standard is only five feet ; more- 
over, few of those who have served in the army return to country 
life. He complains that the education given in the schools is 
unsuited to country children, and suggests that instead of being 
taught from classical writers they should learn by heart from a cate- 
chism of rural life and of farming practice (a favourite idea of our 
colleague the late M. Faunce de Laune). He points out the effect 
of the new Socialistic programme, emanating from the Congress at 
