Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/301

Rh the dairy industry nourishes, especially in the low-lying, moist plains which border the English Channel. France has been divided into four agricultural regions. The first is the land of the olive, bordering the Mediterranean; the second, to the north of the other, is the corn belt, extending in the west to the island of Oléron; in the east, to the middle of the Vosges Mountains. The third is the vine country, limited on the north by a line drawn from the mouth of the Loire to the middle of the Ardennes. The vine is grown throughout central and southern France in detached areas, wherever the soil and exposure especially favor it. The northern plains compose the fourth agricultural region. They are devoted to grain, flax, potatoes, apples, small fruits and garden produce. Southwest of Paris lies the fertile plain of Beauce, the 'Granary of France,' described by Zola in 'La Terre,' and pictured by Millet. Agricultural methods are in the main clumsy and imperfect, and their defects are made up only by grinding toil. This condition of things has been explained as due to the conservatism of the peasant. There is an absence of newspapers and farmers' organizations to spread scientific knowledge concerning the processes of agriculture. The prevalence of small holdings prevents the profitable use of expensive agricultural machinery on private account. While the price of land is high, foreign competition keeps the price of staple products low.

As to mineral resources, France is generally accounted under, rather than over, supplied. There is everywhere an abundance of building-stone. Paris has exhaustless supplies within the municipal area. This has had not a little to do with the splendor and durability of Parisian architecture, which contrasts favorably with the brick of London and the stucco of Berlin. In the northwestern portion of the Central Highlands the mountains of Limonsin afford unexcelled porcelain clays, from which the famous Limoges china is made. The Jura Mountains produce mill-stones and lithographic stones. Brittany has a little tin. The Pyrenees offer nothing but mineral waters, except some iron in the extreme east. At Baccarat, in the Vosges, the ingredients for glass are found, and St. Gobain and St. Quirin manufacture plate glass. Nevertheless, France has perhaps less mineral wealth than any other well-known country of like extent. The chief defect is in connection with the supplies of iron and coal. Iron ore must always be transported to coal, for in producing iron two tons of coal are required to one ton of ore. It is to be desired, therefore, that coal should exist in large beds, accessible to the miner, and of proper quality for coking. Iron, though it may be in small deposits, should be free from certain impurities and not far distant from fuel and flux. France has no large beds of fine coal, and her iron ore is not of high grade; neither is it advantageously located with reference to coal. The largest collieries are in the extreme northeast, and extend across the border into Belgium.