far above that of England and Scotland. To this I will return. But as some illustration of the effect of this exhaustive system of corn husbandry as compared with its proportion of the restorative green crops and grass, the following figures gathered from the returns are deserving of notice:—
| Percentage of Corn and Potatoes. | Percentage of Green Crop, Fallow and Grass. | Average Produce of Wheat per Acre. | |
| Bushels. | |||
| England | 33 | 66 | 28 |
| Prussia | 45 | 55 | 17 |
| France | 54 | 46 | 14 |
This would seem clearly to show that deterioration rapidly follows the loss of a due balance between the exhaustive and restorative crops, where there are no extraneous means of supplying the loss.
Feeble Yield of France Explained.
The state of agriculture in France is of much importance to the consumer of bread in this country. In some recent years she has contributed one-third of our whole foreign supply of wheat, considerably more than the entire produce of Scotland and Ireland. A good crop in France, therefore, at once tells on our prices, whilst a failure brings her large population into competition with us in the general market of the world. She has a vast breadth annually under wheat, but the yield is very small. This has been attributed, and would appear partly due, to the poverty and want of skill of her small occupiers; and many arguments have been founded upon it against the small farms system and the minute subdivision of land. It has often struck me in passing through that part of France which lies between us and Paris that the general cultivation of the land, and the appearance of the growing crops, was quite equal to our own, and the very low average rate of the yield of wheat officially stated seemed to me therefore unaccountable. The explanation has been afforded to me by the distinguished French economist, M. De Lavergne, in the following letter, dated 25th February last:—"The official returns give a mean yield of 1412 hectolitres per hectare, the actual yield being more above than below the estimate. Eight departments, Le Nord, l'Oise, l'Aisne, Somme, Seine-et-Oise, Seine-et-Marne, Seine, and Eure-et-Loire, have a yield equal to the English average; but the forty-five departments which form the southern part of the territory, do not yield more than 10 hectolitres to the hectare. This feeble yield is caused in many of the departments by bad cultivation, and in the south by
