[46] The figures which I take for these calculations are given in Agricultural Returns of the Board of Agriculture and Agricultural Statistics for 1911, vol xlvi., pt. 1. They are as follows for the year 1910:—
| Acres. | ||
| Total area (Great Britain) | 56,803,000 | |
| Uncultivable area | 24,657,070 | |
| (23,680,000 | in 1895) | |
| Cultivable area | 32,145,930 | |
| Out of it, under the plough | 14,668,890 | |
| Out of it, under permanent pasture | 17,477,040 |
(During the last ten years, since the census of 1901, the cultivable area decreased by 323,000 acres, while the urban area increased by 166,710 acres, thus reaching now 4,015,700 acres. Since 1901, 942,000 acres were withdrawn from the plough, 661,000 acres in England, 158,000 in Wales, and 123,000 in Scotland.)
The distribution of the area which is actually under the plough between the various crops varies considerably from year to year. Taking 1910 (an average year) we have the following:—
| Acres. | |
| Corn crops | 7,045,530 |
| Clover and mature grasses | 4,157,040 |
| Green crops and orchards | 2,994,890 |
| Hops | 32,890 |
| Small fruit | 84,310 |
| Flax | 230 |
| Bare fallow, etc. | 354,000 |
| Total under culture (including that part of permanent pasture which gives hay) | 14,668,890 |
| (In 1901 | 15,610,890) |
| (In 1895 | 16,166,950) |
Out of the 7,045,530 acres given to corn crops, 1,808,850 acres were under wheat (nearly 200,000 acres less than in 1899 and 100,000 acres less than in 1911), 1,728,680 acres under barley (only 1,597,930 in 1911), 3,020,970 acres under oats, about 300,000 under beans, and about 52,000 acres under rye and buckwheat. From 540,000 to 570,000 acres were given to potatoes. The area under clover and sown grasses is steadily declining since 1898, when it was 4,911,000 acres.
[47] Only from each 52 acres, out of 308 acres, hay is obtained. The remainder are grazing grounds.
[48] That is, thirty to thirty-three bushels on the average; forty bushels in good farms, and fifty in the best. The area under wheat was 16,700,000 acres in 1910, all chief corn crops covering 33,947,000 acres; the cultivated area is 90,300,000 acres, and the aggregate superficies of France, 130,800,000 acres. About agriculture in France, see Lecouteux, Le blé, sa culture extensive et intensive, 1883; Risler, Physiologie et culture du blé, 1886; Boitet, Herbages et prairies naturelles, 1885; Baudrillart, Les populations agricoles de la Normandie, 1880; Grandeau, La production agricole en France, and L’agriculture et les institutions agricoles du monde au commencement du vingtième siècle; P. Compain, Prairies et paturages; A. Clément, Agriculture moderne, 1906; Augé Laribé, L’évolution de la France agricole, 1912; Léonce de Lavergne’s last edition; and so on.
[49] The exports from France in 1910 (average year) attained: Wine, 222,804,000 fr.; spirits, 54,000,000 fr.; cheese, butter and sugar, 114,000,000 fr. To this country France sent, same year, £2,163,200 worth of wine, £1,013,200 worth of refined sugar, £2,116,000 worth of butter, and £400,000 worth of eggs, all of French origin only, in addition to £12,206,700 worth of manufactured silks, woollens, and cottons. The exports from Algeria are not taken in the above figures.
[50] Each 1,000 acres of French territory are disposed of as follows: 379 acres are under woods and coppices (176), buildings, communal grazing grounds, mountains, etc., and 621 acres are considered as “cultivable.” Out of the latter, 130 are under meadows, now irrigated to a great extent, 257 acres under cereals (124 under wheat, and 26 under wheat mixed with rye), 33 under vineyards, 83 under orchards, green crops, and various industrial cultures, and the remainder is chiefly under permanent pasture or bare fallow. As to cattle, we find in Great Britain, in 1910, which was an average year, 7,037,330 head of cattle (including in that number about 1,400,000 calves under one year), which makes twenty-two head per each 100 acres of the cultivable area, and 27,103,000 sheep—that is, eighty-four sheep per each 100 acres of the same area. In France we find, in the same year, 14,297,570 cattle (nineteen head per each 100 acres of cultivable area), and only 17,357,640 sheep (twenty-one sheep per 100 acres of the same). In other words, the proportion of horned cattle is nearly the same in both countries (twenty-two head and nineteen head per 100 acres), a considerable difference appearing in favour of this country only as to the number of sheep (eighty-four as against twenty-one). The heavy imports of hay, oil-cake, oats, etc., into this country must, however, not be forgotten, because, for each head of cattle which lives on imported food, eight sheep can be grazed, or be fed with home-grown fodder. As to horses, both countries stand on nearly the same footing.