France has one element of stability, one characteristic inducive of
thriftiness, that most other countries of Europe lack. In most
other European countries the land is held by few proprietors. In
France it is held by many. In Great Britain and Ireland, for
example, the land that is devoted to agriculture is held by only
19,000 proprietors. In France it is held by 3,500,000 proprietors.
There are also 3,500,000 district farms in France, though only
sixty per cent. of the farm land of the country is cultivated by
the owners. It follows from this that agriculture has in France a
hold upon the affections and self-interest of the people that it
has in no other country in the world. About forty-two per cent. of
the total population of the country able to work are employed in
agricultural pursuits. Agriculture, therefore, is one of the most
important industries of France. One fifth of the total earnings of
her people are made in agriculture. It cannot be said, however,
that agriculture in France is pursued as successfully as it is in
some other countries--in Great Britain, for example. France, with
sometimes the exception of Russia, is the largest wheat-grower of
all the nations of Europe, but its production of grain per acre is
not more than four sevenths that of Great Britain, while its
production of grain per farming hand is only two thirds that of
Great Britain. But so much of the agricultural effort of France is
devoted to such industries as can be carried on in small farms or
holdings--potato-raising, for example, and fruit-raising and
poultry-raising--that the total money product per acre in France
is not far short of what it is in Great Britain. That is to say,
while agriculture is more profitably carried on in Great Britain
than in France, it proportionately supports a larger number of
people in France than in Great Britain.