GLEANINGS FROM THE PAPERS.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 3, Issue 146, 24 July 1880, Page 3

GLEANINGS FROM THE PAPERS.

General Grant, iu speaking of the methods of agriculture in China, 9aid that ho was shown a pieco of land which has-beiii under cultivation every year for 5000 veins without deterioration of the fertility of tlia soil. This result is effected by returning to the soil everything taken from it. Fish constitutes a large portion of the food of the people, and all the offal not consumed for human food is carefully applied to the soil, and fish U a great fertiliser. Evon the roots of wheat—wheat is grown to a very limited extent—are taken and rotted in a compost heap and returned to the soil. All the leaves and garbage are utilised in the same manner, 110 said : " Famines occur in the interior of China, in which thousands die of starvation. This is due to the want of facilities for transportation. In the aggregate the country produces enough to support even the d?me life of China, but in some seasons (here are portions of the country wheie crops are total or partial failures; while iu these same seasons crops are abundant and successful in other parts. Facilities' for transportation would enable the more favoured districts to supply the destitution hi the localities of want, but no such facilities exist."

English travellers iu France have often wondered where all the fowls that figure daily in tho maims at every hotel, restaurant, and private house in that country, at no matter what season of the year, can possibly come from ; but, thanks to some singular statistics just published, this mystery has been cleared up. France wo are told, contains no fewer than ■l-0,000,000 hens, which are followed by a train of 100,000,000 chickens, about a tenth part of theso latter being destined for the duties of propagation. The 40,000,000 hens lay annually four milliards of eggs, which, at the rate of six centimes each—a trifle over a halfpenny—the price paid to the breeder, realise a sum of 240,000,000, francs. If to this amount be added the proceeds from the sain of fowls, whether lean or fat, ami taking into consideration also the surplus value attaching to eggs and birds by reason of city tolls, the total arrived at is set down at the almost fabulous figure of 550,000,000 francs, or more than half a milliard, produced annually by French poultry-yards. Neither ducks nor geese, nor turkeys are included in these calculations; if they were the gross sum would have to be increased several-hundreds of millions of francs. So, accepting this census as tolerably near' the mark, we' may henceforth cease to be surprised' at the vast amount of chicken bones daily picked in France.

The observations of statisticians have been of late directed to the serious but sternly decrease in the population of Franco, as evinced by the gradual losßenning of the birth rate In IK7B, the number of births was 937,211', a Iow»r average than that of the last four years. There ore two onuses for this decrease—viz., the fewer number' of marriages, and what is far more important, a groat decline in the number of children resulting from these marriages. The proportion of children t'.i each marriage istlv'indling more anil more, with the exception of Briltaiiv and some of t!ie departments in t'ne centre and south. In the olass compose 1 of petty tradesmen or the well-to-do jiflsants there is seldom more than one child per marriage; and in one of the" itiral oommwies in Plainly'it has hee'ii ascertained thrft the number of children a'mong the belt-off of :be peasants, is onlv 37 for So families. The illegitimate 'binhs in l' 87» numbered' 37,912, being 1,000 over and above that of the preceding year. To a certain' extent tlie decrease in population is kept in' check by tho decrease in the mortality, which numbered 839,036 in I'B7B, or ~."2<i per cent., whereas in 1804-68' it was 'J..'ji. Another cause which affects it slightly is tha steady influx of foreigners into Francn, now estimated at one million, principally consisting of Belgians, Germans, Swiss, and Italians. Tho main difficulty, however, remains—what is to be the ultimate destiny of France if this decline of tho population goes on increasing ?