Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/850

 494 DENMARK

The Toidcnakjold is a remarkable ship liaving no side-armour, but carrying in an armoured barbette the heaviest gun in the Danish Navy. The deck- jtrotected cruisers Gciscr, Ilckla, and Ilcimdal (1,310 tons), Fyca (2,740 tons, and Valkyricii (3,020 tons) have been Iniilt, like most other Danish vessels, at C^openhagen. These are the most important and recent of the cruising vessels. An armoured sldp, the Herluf TroUc, of 3,470tons, and a .sister .ship are in hand at Copenhagen.

Production and Industry.

The soil of Denmark is greatly subdivided, owing partly to the state of the law, which interdicts the union of small farms into larger estates, but encourages, in various ways, the parcelling out of landed property, and leaves the tenant entire control of his land so long as the rent is paid.

Of the total area of Denmark 80 per cent, is productive ; about one sixth of the unproductive area is peat bogs. Of the productive area 6 per cent, is forest, and of the remainder less than one half is arable, and the remainder ])asture and meadows. The total area under corn crops, according to latest returns (1896), was 2,876,000 acres; potatoes, 129, 500 acres ; clover, 656,600 acres ; bare fallow, 545, 600 acres ; meadows, &c., 2,247,000 acres. The leading crops in 1897 were oats, 34,140,000 bushels ; barley, 18,580,000 Imshels ; rye, 17,570,000 bushels ; wheat, 3,368,000 bashels ; potatoes, 19,550,000 bushels ; other roots, 147,000,000 bushels ; besides vegetables, hay and clover. The total value of the produce in 1897 was 319,832,876 kroner'; in 1896, 323,598,188 kroner ; in 1895, 301,170,176 kroner.

On July 15, 1893, there were in Denmark proper 410,639 horses, 1,696,190 head of cattle, 1,246,552 sheep, 25,266 goats, and 829,131 swine. (In 1881 there were 1,470,078 cattle, and in 1871, 1,238,898.)

In 1897 there were exported 20,800 horses, 81,122 head of cattle, 6,250 sheep and lambs.

In 1897 there were in Denmark 81 distilleries (Copenhagen 22), whose output of brandv, reduced to pure alcohol (100 per cent.), was 3,586,000 gallons (16,870,000 potter). In 1896 there were produced 20,530,000 gallons of excisable beer and 29,840,000 gallons (small) beer, not excisable.

In the same year 48,345 tons of beet sugar were produced at 6 sugar factories.

Commerce.

The following table shows the value, according to official returns, of the imports and general exports (excluding precious metal) for six years.

Years Imports Exports \\ fears ; Imports Exports

I Kroner Kroner I I Kroner ! Kroner

1890 I 307,031,194 ! 233,837,937 [ 1895 I 364,039,120 I 268,894,032

1893, 320,294,907 \ 235,115,937 i 1896 i 383,936,695 ! 283,878,946

1894, 348,969,131 \ 263,664,535 j 1897 ; 416,797,703 1 328,121,076

The exports of home produce in five years were, in kroners : — 1893, 198,300; 1894, 221,700,000; 1895, 216,700,000; 1896, 218,600,000; 1897, 243,500,000.