Note 50 — Chapter III · THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE.

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.