Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1888-07-30
Gated in the open air a number of degrees to
Hha aorlfh Of Paris

Gated in the open air number of degrees to
the south of Paris.
He and other market gardeners around
Paris make their soil, and have each year
quite quantity to sell, for If this disposi-
ton was not made, in consequence Of the
amount of fertilizer used, their farms would
gradually be lifted up above the level OF the
surrounding ground. Prince Krapotkine
says il does not in the least matter what the
soil is from which they originally start, for
French market gardener would in two years'
time raise an abundance Of vegetable pro-
ducts from an asphalt pavement as founda-
ton. Soil, either made up of loanQ or fer
tilizers, is a chemical product, and not the
least difficulty viii be experienced when the
laws of chemistry are better understood, in
manufacturing all of the material needed for
plant life.
In his opinion the ordinary French market
gardeners are but beginning in the business,
for they devote great deal of unnecessary
time and labor to work which could be much
more easily performed by mechanical pro-
cesses. The way il which this could be
brought about is shown in the experience of
one French market gardener, who has COW
cred over half acre tract of ground with
glass roof, and has run steam pipes, sup
piled by small steam boiler, at intervals
under the ground sheltered by this covering.
The result has been that he has been able for
ten months out of every year to cut each day
twelve hundred large punches of asparagus,
an amount Of product which, under ordinary
conditions, would require not less than sixty
acres of land; that is, by skilful adaptation
of means to ends, the productive capacity of
a given tract of land has been increased
more than hurdredfold. Even this result,
great as it is, has been surpassed by an Eng
lish gardener, whose experiences are referred
to in the last number of the Quarterly Re-
view, who has entered into the cultivation of
mushrooms, and has been able, in conse~
quenee of the skill he has shown in this
work, to net an annual profit from little
farm of one acre in extent of more than Eve
thousand dollars. That the market gardens
around Paris are profitable may be judged
by the fact that the average rental charged
for these is one hundred and fifty dollars per
acre.
Prince Krapotkine maintains that, even at
the present time, with their only partially
instructive methods, the French gardeners
could easily raise enough, both in animals
and vegetables. to supply all that was needed
for the sustenance and protection of life at
the rate of one thousand human beings to
the square mile, or in other words, under
method of intense and properly directed Gull
ture, it will be easy for the State of Massa-
chusetts to sustain within her own borders q
population of not loss than nine million hu-
man beings, and this, be it remembered, is
but the beginning, for no one yet knows the
limit to be set upon the productive capacity
I of the soil.
Taking his statement as basis, it is easy
4 to see that assertions concerning the present
1 congestion of population refer rather to the
/ lack of knowledge on the part of mankind
or to vicious laws restricting the proper dis
tribution of land than to what might be
| termed natural obstacles Great Britain and
| ireland have, by the last official estimate, a
/ population of thirty seven million souls; but
1 on the basis of sustenance given by Prince
| Krapotkine, the land area in the United
Kingdom, throwing out one-sixth as noun
1 taiuous and hence unsuited to agriculture,
ought to be able to support, without impor-
| tation from abroad, quite one hundred mill
1 lion human beings; while, on similar esti-
mate of productive capacity, the United
States has the natural resources needed to
sustain population Of fully three billion, or
quite twice the present population of the en-
| tire world.