for permanent improvements, we shall have bread and meat assured to us, without including all the extra meat obtainable in the shape of fowls, pigs, rabbits, etc.; without taking into consideration that a population provided with excellent vegetables and fruit consumes less meat than Englishmen, who supplement their poor supply of vegetables by animal food. Now, how much do 20 million work-days of 5 hours make per inhabitant? Very little indeed. A population of 312 millions must have at least 1,200,000 adult men, and as many women capable of work. Well, then, to give bread and meat to all, it would need only 17 half-days of work a year per man. Add 3 million work-days, or double that number if you like, in order to obtain milk. That will make 25 work-days of 5 hours in all—nothing more than a little pleasurable country exercise—to obtain the three principal products: bread, meat, and milk. The three products which, after housing, cause daily anxiety to nine-tenths of mankind.
And yet—let us not tire of repeating—these are not fancy dreams. We have only told what is, what has been, obtained by experience on a large scale. Agriculture could be reorganized in this way to-morrow if property laws and general ignorance did not offer opposition.
The day Paris has understood that to know what you eat and how it is produced, is a question of public interest; the day when everybody will
