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Land Tenure in France

Many interesting particulars with regard to the agricultural condition of France are furnished by M. Tisserand, the Director of Agriculture.

The information given by M. Tisserand can, it is true, only be taken as approximate, as the returns were collected in 1882, and it has taken all this time to put them together; but so little change has occured since, that the figures may be taken as representing very closely the actual condition of affairs in France.

M. Tisserand premises by stating that 6,913,000 persons were gaining their livelihood by agriculture in 1882, or four per cent. less, as compared with the total population, than when the preceding agricultural census was taken in 1862. There has, however, been an increase in the agricultural population of certain departments, such as those of Brittany, owing to the great excess of births over deaths, and in those around Paris, owing to the extent to which the cultivation of garden produce is now carried. But of every 25,000 acres, with an average number of 1144 holdings, there are 437 of less than two and a half acres; 532 of from two and a half to twenty-five acres, 147 of from twenty-five to one hundred acres, and only twenty-eight of over one hundred acres. In other words, the holdings of from two and a half to twenty-five acres are the most numerous, forming forty-six per cent. of the whole, while the holdings of not over two and a half acres make up thirty-eight per cent., the holdings of from twenty-five to one hundred acres being only six per cent. The following table shows, however, that this is not peculiar to France, M. Tisserand making the comparison with Germany : Number of Holdings.

Acreage of Holdings.

Under 21/2 acres From I to 25 acres From 25 to 125 acres • From 125 to 250 acres From 250 to 500 acres From 500 to 1250 acres.

Over 1250 acres France.