The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-04-07
Clinging to the Soil in France,

New York Tribune: The cry of
Back to the land!" which is much
heard and may be profitably needed
in some places, has no force in
France. There the people are cling
Ing to the soil in q manner perhaps
unrivalled in the world. Neither is
there much worrying over the failure
OF France to hold her rank with her
great competitors in manufactures and
trade. She does hold, of course, an
enviable rank in those things, and al
ways will while French taste and in
genuity survive. But at least in agri-
culture she more than maintains her
comparative rank, and she presents
today the exceptional spectacle of a
great country, old in years, with a
complex civilization developed beyond
that of nearly all the rest of the world,
yet remaining Enthusiastically an
agricultural country.
If we accept the yearly production
of coal as an index of industrialisnl,
France must rank far below her three
great rivals. Great Britain produces
five and one-half tons of coal head
of her population, the United States
four tons, Germany three tons, and
France only nine-tenths of ton. But
then France, with her scarcely 49,
1000 people, has more than 91,O00,-
900 acres of land under high cultiva-
ton, most of it in small holdings, and
thus providing directly for the support
and profit of the people More than
half of the land is owned by the occu-
~pants, in farms of from az to 100
acres. Moreover, while before the
French revolution the, agriculture of
France was proverbially about the
worst in the world, it is now perhaps
the best. If we take wheat as an in
dex crop, it is to be noted that in
Great Britain only 100000 acres are
devoted to it, against 100000 in
France. The wheat acreage in Great
Britain has enormously declined since
Cobden's time, while that of France
has increased by so per cent. since
Waterloo. At the same time the aver
age yield has greatly increased in
France, from ia bushels an acre in
1920 to ia bushels in 1900.
The causes of this almost unique
agricultural efficiency in such coun-
try are not difficult to discern. OF
course, there are great advantages of
soil and climate, and much must be
credited to the genius of the people
their industry, ingenuity, frugality and
thrift. Besides these, however, much
account must be taken of government
tai protection and promotion. There
has been protective tariff, shrewdly
designed to benefit the farmers, and
the government has given many prizes
for supremacy in agriculture, has de-
voted much attention to scientific in
vestigations for the development Of
improved methods and for the eradi-
cation of evils, and has secured for
farmers low rates of transportation
on railroads and canals. Much credit
is also to be given to the cooperative
efforts of the farmers themselves. The
latter are a comparatively new thing.
AS recently as 1883 there was in all
France only one cooperative agricul-
tural organization. In 1885 there were
80, in 1891 there were $50, in 1896
there were 1875 and in 1901 there
were 2,529. Not only is France, in
brief, a distinctly agricultural nation,
but also French agriculture is dis
tinctively a highly organized, special
lied and developed industry and art.
Whether or not other European ma
tons will emulate the French devo-
ton to the soil, it is certain that all
agricultural nations have something to
learn of France in respect to their
agricultural methods.