FARMING IN FRANCE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 14 November 1925, Page 15

FARMING IN FRANCE.

A THRIFTY RURAL LIFE. DEMOCRATISING OWNERSHIP. The French farmer is one of the most industrious citizens in the wor d His thrift is amazing. No citizen or the great republic is more democratically independent. Monsieur le fermier lives frugally within the bosom of his equal-y industrious family. \Vhen the day work is done he will join his friends socially in the village estaminet, or huddle round the kitchen stove drinking coffee and smoking innumerable cigarettes. Admittedly the backbone of France, the Parisian regards him with feuda] snobberv as a peasant. His very small net income renders him practically exempt from direct taxation. He buys a few goods and employs little labour. Politically, he represents a valuable unit in the enormous farm vote of France. Above all, he is a. philosopher. He is the definition of an ancient political economy. If the “broad acres” of the Roman patrician of feudal times exist somewhere in France the traveller is unaware of them. What, in fact, may appear to he huge areas of cultivation prove to be tesselated subdivisions. Neither hedges nor fences divide these holdings, a corner stone on the houndary usually being the survey line of ownership. In the irrigated flat country channels divide one block from another, and the farmer, or market gardener. goes to work in a boat. Round about Abbeville, in Picardy, where so many New Zealand troops were billeted during the war, farms built, on a- slope arc divided off in terraces, which constitute a vc’ic of ancient lighting days. Only among people of a nation which, despite the French revolution, traditionally respects law and order, could such a condition of implied boundaries exist. The soil of France is rioldy fertile. The waste lands and moors made up less than one-twelfth of the whole area. Thfc number of agricultural land owners i. 4 a beta t 4,500,000. Altogether there are about 6,000,000 farms in the country, more than 5,000,000 of which are composed ot blocks Ies s than 25 acres in extent. More than a quarter of the agricultural land is devoted to cereal crops, a tenth to pasturage, onethirtieth to vineyards, while a sixth, is covered with forests. Wheat is the chief crop, a yield of IS bushels to the acre being the average from up to 17,000.000 acres. Oats, rye, barley, buckwheat and maize are also, cultivated, while the beetroot is cultivated for sugar on a large scale. France, despite the ravages of phylloxera, produces yearly 100.000,000 gallons of wine, and tobacco is grown in the basins of the Garonne and Rhone.

The importance of the Trench farmer in the national scheme of things is indicated hv the fact that half the population is rural. The enormous population of Paris —which is France’s one big and great city—is apt to give the globe trotter the impression that the Champs Elysees and the grand boulevards are France; that the frayed aristocracy living elegantly about the Parc Monceau, epitomise French citizenship; and that the extravagantly slim lines of the gay Parisienne represent the type of La Pel !.e France. Nothing could be more misleading. The real France, as the Frenchman of the provinces would tell Mr Punch’s ambassador, is far from Paris. The hub of France is the village of primitively designed stone dwellings and thatched roofs through which you drive, and in which countless New Zealand troons have lingered. There, and in the spacious market place* of the towns, with their cobbled surfaces, will you find the character of this historic nation. Once or twice a week the farmer and the farmer’s wife set out with farm wagon or hand cart, and rarely with a Ford, to the nearest market place. This mart of merchandise is like no other rendezvous of trade. Awnings have been erected overnight above stands all over the square. Every conceivable article of, produce and of household requirement is bought and sold. Lace* and embroideries, the handicraft of madame and her daughters; butter, eggs, poultry, "'ine—the product of the smallest farm are exchanged. On market day you have the expression of that elemental democracy which the Bourbons despised All day this bargaining goes on, and at night weary villagers make for their domestic stoves and coffee pots with the surfeited feeling that marks the end of a perfect day’s festival. Since the war the lot of the farmer in France has improved. The high price of foodstuff* and the protective duties in operation have given him better returns. Even during the war there were many evidences of the adoption of more modern methods in farming. Somewhat ironic, perhaps, was tlie spectacle -of Canadian- farming implements in use for ploughing and harvesting, but the new world must teach the old world something. Co-operative organisation of farmers lias also developed with fruitful effect of recent times, and it is probable that in future the rural worker may be called upon to make a more direct and substantial contribution of taxes to bis country. In 1924 only £400,000 wa s collected from him in direct taxation. The net, income of the French farmer has, until recently, been so small that a basis of taxation has not been uniformly practicable. This condition is largely the result of the French law. by which a child may claim 41 share of the paternal estate, and which has led to extreme cases of division in land ownership. In one commune 5384 acres have been split up into 48,000 parcels. In another case 120 acres of land are owned in 1945 parcels. Each of these parcels is not necesasrily worked separately, hut separate ownership is frequently reduced to a piece of land measuring only 500 square feet. The family farm is one of France's national and most democratic institutions. Ownership of the soil by those who actually till it is considered a certain means of maintaining a great rural population. Where difficulty in working is experienced owing to the separation of small parcels of land owned by one family, consolidation is urged. To encourage the process of consolidation, a law was passed in 1919 authorising farmers to form syndical associations. In the war devastated regions that law has operated effectively to some extent, many small farms having- been pieced together, but elsewhere iu France consolidation lias lyeen very slow. The smal]; farmer of France is quite as conservative as the wealthy squatter landowner in New Zealand.