Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/1424

 1068 SWITZERLAND

Production and Industry.

The soil of the country is very equally divided among the population, it being estimated that there are nearly 300,000 peasant proprietors, representing a population of about 2,000,000.

Of the total area 28*4 per cent, is unproductive ; of the productive area 35 '8 per cent, is under grass and meadows, 29 per cent, under forest, 187 per cent, under fruit, 16 '4 per cent, under crops and gardens. Rye, oats, and potatoes are the chief crops, but the bulk of food crops consumed in the country is imported. The chief agricultural industries are the manufacture of cheese and condensed milk. The export of cheese (1897^ amounts to 232,002 quintals, and of condensed milk to 202,266 quintals. In 1896 there were in Switzerland 108,969 horses, 4,851 mules and asses, 1,306,696 cattle, 271,901 sheep, 566,974 pigs, 415,817 goats.

The Swiss Confederation has the right of supervision over the police of the forests, and of framing regulations for their maintenance. The entire forest area of Switzerland is 3,206 square miles, or 2,051,670 acres in extent. The district over which the Federal supervision extends lies to the south and east of a tolerably straight line from the eastern end of the Lake of Geneva to the northern end of the Lake of Constance. It comprises about 1.119,270 acres, and the Federal forest laws apply to all cantonal, communal, and municipal forests within this area, those belonging to private persons being exempt, except when from their position they are necessary for protection against climatic influences. In 1876 it was enacted that this forest area should never be reduced ; servitudes over it, such as rights of way, of gathering firewood, &c., should be bought up ; public forests should be surveyed, and new wood j)lanted where required, subventions for the purpose being sanc- tioned. Up to the end of 1897 the cadastration of 262,940 acres of forest had been executed, and in the year 1897, 9,784,084 trees were planted. The free forest districts comprise 1,477 square miles.

There were, in 1897, 139 establishments for pisciculture, which produced fry of various species to the number of 23,512,300.

Switzerland is in the main an agricultural country, though with a strong tendency to manufacturing industry. There are 5 salt-mining districts ; that at Bex (Vaud) belongs to the Canton, but is worked by a private company ; that at Schweizk^rhalle (Basel) is worked by the Glenck family ; those at Eheinfelden, Ryburg, and Kaiscraugst (Aargau) are worked by a' joint-stock company, in virtue of a concession from the Canton. The output of salt of all kinds in 1896 reached 472,929 quintals. From the various cement works the output in 1896 amounted to 417,085 tons. In 1895, there were altogether in Switzerland 4,933 factories of various kinds, subject to the factory law, em- ploying workpeople to the number of 200,002, and machinery of 152,718 horse-power, half of which was derived from water-power. The chief industries were the various textile industries, 1,793 establishments, employ- ing 91,454 hands ; leather, caoutchouc, kc, 126 establishments, with 8,365 hands ; articles of food, 537, with 14,004 hands ; chemical products, 167, with 4,058 hands; wood industry, 7,528, with 11,347 hands; metals, 234, with 9,936 hands; paper, 417, with 11,062 hands; watches, jewellery, &c., 488, with 16,334 hands. Also 275 breweries produced in 1896, 1,879,567 hectolitres of beer. The Federal alcohol regie in the year 1897 sold 65,376 metric quintals of drinkable spirits, and 42,081 metric quintals of medicated spirits. In Switzerland there are about 1,400 hotels, employing about 16,000 persons, the receipts of the hotels amounting annually to about 3,500,000^.