Successful Farming in France. (From the Melbourne August.)

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 189, 29 January 1887, Page 4

Successful Farming in France. (From the Melbourne August.)

The question, Will farming pay a,t the prcsonfc low prices of agricultural produce? has just been answered emphatically in the affirmative by M. Boutelleau, a French farmer, who admonishes his countrymen that protection is but a broken iced to lean upon, and that it is to chemistry, and not to tariffs, they must look for the means of rendering husbandry remunerative. That he is no closet theorist, but is speaking from the practical experience of neivly 20 years, will be apparent, from what follows. In 1789, his grandfather bought the farm of Les Gueris, consisting of 10(5 acre", in the department of La Ohuvente for the sum of £10,500 The homestead and outbuildings were in mins ; and the total capital expended on the place by the original purchaser and his son was -C 1,100 Nevertheless, the latter was awardod a pold medal by the agricultural society of Barbezieux in 1808 for the best cultivated farm in La Charente. In that year the present owner succeeded to the property, and applied himself to procure the bpfit implements available, to increase the live stock on the farm, and to make a liberal use of chemical manures. His vineyard having been destroyed by the phylloxera in 1874', he ploughed ifc up and converted it into pastures. His purchases of artificial manures began with an outlay of £4, and mounted up to £100 per annum, but at the present time from ,£,lO to £12 is found ,to suffice j beoause his r42 r 42 head of cattle, 18 hpraes, and 40 pigs— the latter fed from the

refuse of his cheese factory—yield enough natural manure to keep the land in heart. The average yield of wheat in the department is 30 bushels to the hectare. M. Boutelleau's ranges from 90 to 115 buaheia, while his crops, of hay are four times as heavy as his neighbours'. His published balance-sheets show a net profit of £7 per awe, or 14 per cent, upon the capital value of the farm, while the average return upon similar properties in the same district is only 2£ per cent. And it is important to observe that the area formerly devoted to a vineyard is found to be more profitable under its present system of cultivation than it was when under vines. M. Boutelleau is firmly convinced that if agriculture will only call science to its aid, it will emerge triumphantly from its present trials, and that satisfactory profits are quite compatible with low prices. He exhorts his brother husbandmen not to hesitate in moving forward, but to " have confidence in the earth, that great common mother of us all, who will not refuse to return with a liberal hand whatever is bestowed upon her." In his own ase, not only is he deriving a handsome income from his farm of a little more than a hundred acres, but ita present value is appraised at six times its -original cost.