State Convention—Grass is King. 401 
BRITISH AND FRENCH AGRICULTURE. 
British agriculture is almost perfection. Taking the farmers of 
Great Britain as our instructors, we may derive some valuable hints 
from their experience. Of the fifty millions of acres under cultiva¬ 
tion in the United Kingdom of Great Britain, less than twelve 
millions of acres are devoted to “ white-crops ” or cereals, while 
over twenty-six millions of acres are kept in permanent pasturage, 
six millions of acres under clover and rotation-grasses, and six mil¬ 
lions of acres devoted to turnips and other vegetables. England, 
Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, have about two and three-fourths 
millions of horses, ten millions of cattle, and over thirty millions of 
sheep. Repetition of white or grain crops is not permitted. In¬ 
stead of the old process of restoring or resting land by keeping it 
fallow every fourth year, which was equivalent to the permanent 
withdrawal of one quarter of the tillable land from cultivation; the 
turnip-crop, with its broad leaves that shield the soil from the rays 
of the sun, and with its nutritious roots that are fed, before ripen¬ 
ing, to cattle and sheep, is resorted to as the most effectual method 
of benefiting both land and stock, as biennial-plants derive their 
chief nourishment from the air, and do not exhaust the soil, if used 
before they ripen. 
Eorty-two acres in every one hundred acres in England, and sixty- 
four in every one hundred acres in Ireland are pasture. England 
imports only five per per cent, of meats consumed. The capacity 
of land when kept up to its utmost productiveness in densely pop¬ 
ulated countries of Europe is demonstrated in the ability of many 
tillers of English soil, besides paying heavy rents, to support a large 
family on the products of six acres of land; and in Germany, two 
acres of land have yielded a similar amount of subsistence; while in 
France, where the long and narrow ribbon-like farms are cultivat¬ 
ed almost as carefully-as gardens, the capacity of land has reached 
results that would tax western credulity. The French farmers seem 
to enjoy great benefits from the culture of the sugar-beet; and one 
farm that is owned by Monsieur De Candaine, located on the Tou- 
raine, valued at two millions of francs, or about four hundred thou¬ 
sand dollars, with sugar, linen, and woolen factories thereon, sends 
to market annually one thousand head of fat cattle. The annual 
income of this farm is five hundred thousand francs, or about one 
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