Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1880-02-13
AsHTABULA OHIO, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13 1880
ALessOn from France.

Gen. Butler delivered a good sensible
speech recently at the international
Dairy Fair in New York upon subject of
interest to the whole of America. Setting
out with the statement that may be new
to housekeepers who do not keep de-
tailed accounts of every expenditure,
namely that people pay more for their
butter than for the bread upon which it
is spread, he mentioned that the produc-
ton of butter and cheese in the United
States during the past year was worth
$3.50, 100000 or one seventh more than
the value of the wheat crop, and one
third more than the value of the cotton
crop, of the country. He proceeded to
argue that land produces a greater re-
turn when it is subdiyided into small
holdings and well titled, instead of be-
ing held in large tracts and only half
cultivated. One of his illustrations was
the rapid change of the wheat region
within the memory of men yet living.
Genesee -four was at one time the ia
Vorite brand; then St. Louis -four began
to be heard of and finally Minnesota
flour commanded the highest price.
Men who were alive when Genesee -four
was all the rage have seen California
wheat brought in ships $4,000 miles
around Cape Horn and ground in the
mills at Rochester, situated in the heart
of the Genesee country. The system of
surface farming which prevails in the
United States is believed by General
Butler to be the principal cause of boys
leaving their pateTnal home and seek
ing their fortunes in the cities So long
as there is unlimited land in the market,
to be had at nominal rates, the system
will hardly be changed, and vet there
are examples to be found of the oppo-
site style of farming which can be
studied with profit.
England, one might at first suppose, is
q country where the careful cultivation
of small areas would produce the largest
return. But, though England may soon
be oppressed by the difficulty of finding
means to pay for imported breadstutfs,
that country is not well suited for the
best style of agriculture, because the
land is held by few owners and under
the tenant system the greatest average
of production can never be reached.
France furnishes an example of what
can be done where the land is cut up
into small plots. Only tWo-fifths of
the French people i've in the towns, as
contrasted with four-fifths of the Eng
lish people. TwO-thirds of the area of
France is actually cultivated, and the
average size of farms is less than fifteen
acres. France, having a smaller area
than the State of Texas, produced more
wheat in 1868 than the whole Of the
United States, the figures being S50,000.
600 bushels for France and 240,000,O00
bushels for the United States.
In 1876 the United States exported in
to England $2,365,000 worth of butter
and $12,824,000 worth of cheese; the
same year France sent to England $18,-
$4,000 worth of butter, and no appre-
ciable quantity of cheese.
The facts and figures, are indeed sur
prising. The extraordinary productive
ness of French soil may be to some ex-
tent accounted for by the existence of
the beet sugar industry, the beet pulp
being excellent food for cattle and max
ing a good quality of manure, whAe
the cultivation of the soil for a root
crop makes it all the better for wheat.
But it must be remembered that the
beet sugar factories are nearly all located
in haH a dozen Departments in the
northern part of the country. The pro-
0uCslOA VI euSdI5 olIA anu WINS III
France are a good set-of to the produc-
tions of cotton and tobacco in the
United States. The inhabitants Of Quebec
inherit the French custom of subdiyid-
ing farms among the members of
family, but they have not attained the
same perfection IN agriculture, per-
haps owing to the inferiority of the soil
of Quebec. The lesson to be learned
from France is useful one, and General
Butler has done a marked service in
collecting the information contained in
his address for the instruction of Ameri-
can farmers, some of whom may be in
duced to act upon the hint and strive to
improve their condition by a better cul-
wilton of the lands in their Dossession.