FRANCE-TRADE, COMMERCE, AND MANUFACTURES. jx Revenue From the budjet revenue and expenditure of the state to the whole was: Receipts Expenditure. 180,782,000 fr. -1616,112,000 695,070,000 Extraordinary. 222,510,000 301,468,000 Total..... 1,098,362,000 1,098,362,000. Trade, Commerce, and Manufactures.-The exports of France are wine, vinegar, brandy, oil, silks, satins, linens, woollen cloth, tapestries, laces, gold and silver embroideries, toys, trinkets, perfumery, paper, prints, books, drugs, dyes, etc. The imports are hardware, earthenware, cottons, metals, hemp, flax, silk, wool, horses, East and West India goods, etc. The silk manufacture was introduced into France by Louis XI, about the year 1470. The silk mills are about 1500 in num-; ber, the looms about 28,000; besides 12,000 for ribands, lace, and galloors, and 40,000 for stockings; the whole silk manufacture occupying about two millions of people. The looms for woollens about 55,000; for cottons 24,000. Abbeville manufactures sails and broad cloths; Elbœuf, Louviers, and Sedan, broad cloths; Rouen, linens; Bretagne, linen, cordage, sails; Berri, linen; Auvergne, laces, papers; Montpellier, liqueurs; Langres, cutlery; St. Quentin and Cambray, batistes, or cambrics; Paris, glass; Sevres, porcelain: the best carpets are made at the Savonnerie, in Paris. Silks, lace, gloves, black broad cloth, and cambric, are superior to the same articles in England. The woollen cloths are extremely beautiful, and the finer sorts are of a superior texture to any thing in England; but the price is always double what they sell for at home, so that we have not much to fear from their im- · portations. French watches are manufactured at about one half the English price, but the workmanship is inferior to ours, and, unless as trinkets for ladies' wear, they are not much esteemed in England. The cutlery is very bad; not only the steel, but the temper and polish are greatly inferior to ours. A pair of English razors is, to this day, a princely present in France. The ladies also are very anxious to get English needles and scissars. Hardware is flimsy, ill finished, and of bad materials. All leather work, such as sadlery, harness, shoes, etc. is very bad, but undersells our manufactures of the same kind by about one half. Cabinet work and furniture is very handsome, tasty, and showy, but insufficient and dear. Jewellery, equal if not superior to ours in neatness, but not so strong. Hats and hosiery indifferent, except silk stockings. Musical instruments are made as well, and at half the English price. In almost every thing else the manufactures of France are inferior to those of England. Great improvement has taken place in the manufacture of calicoes, muslins, and other cotton goods, in France, as well as in broad cloth, within the last twelve years; chiefly from the introduction of machinery by Englishmen. The following sketch of the actual state of France with respect to its national wealth, its agriculture, manufactures and commerce is extracted from a very interesting work, entitled De 'Industrie Française, just published by the cele brated Chaptal, formerly minister of the interior. Annual Agricultural Produce.. I. Corn and Grain. The annual produce in France of these articles is : 1 II. Wine. After the corn-lands we must place the vineyards from the importance of their produce. It appears that there are in France about 1,613,939 hectares of land planted with vines; and that the produce of wine, taking the mean term of five years, is 35,358,890 hectolitres; of this quantity, about a sixth is converted into brandies. As the price of the wines varies exceedingly, from 7 or 8 francs the hectolitre up to 200 fr., a mean value has been assumed in the wine countries, which makes the annual value of the wines made in France, 678,750,000 fr., without reckoning the brandies. The latter are the produce of the 5,358,890 hectolitres of wine reserved for this purpose; the author reckons their quantity at 1,100,000 hectolitres; which, at the rate of 50 fr. each, give for the value of the brandies 55,000,000 fr., which, added to the value of the produce of the undis tilled wines, form a gross revenue of 733,750,000 francs. AIII Wool. After the wines, the most considerable produce is that of wool, which amounts annually to 37,928,513 kilograms of different qualities; which, sold at different prices, according to the qualities, (including the merinos) gives as the total of the price of the wool 81,339,317 francs. IV. Silks.Silk is cultivated only in twelve departments; and the annual quantity gathered is 5,147,609 kilograms, which produce a value of 15,442,827 francs. Hemp and Flax. Hemp occupies about 100,000 hectares, which produce 386,773 metric quintals of hemp en baton, forming an approximative value of 30,941,840 fr. Flax is cultivated in about forty departments; it occupies 40,000 hectares, and affords a produce of the value of 19 millions. We shall not follow the author in his valuation of the other branches of agricultural produce, such as madder, liquorice, hops, chesnuts, honey, wax; but shall only remark, that, calculating the produce of the orchards at the mean rate of 60 fr the hectare, the trees raised in them produce in fruit an annual value of 21,540,000 fr., arising from 359,000 hectares which are employed in this branch of cultivation. France exports annually 2,590,000 fr. worth of fruit, and imports 1,175,300 fr. of dried fruits. Estimating the produce of a hectare of ground cultivated as a kitchen-garden, at the mean value of 600 fr., the author finds, that the number of hectares employed in raising garden vegetables in France being 328,000, their value amounts to 196,000,000 fr. The first instruments of agriculture, those which the farmer cannot do without, and which seem to multiply the crops in proportion with their number, are horses and cattle; they are not at present sufficiently numerous in France for the purposes either of labour or manure. France possesses only 1,656,671 horses and mares, and 465,946 colts under four years. The number of bulls, oxen, cows and heifers is still less in proportion with the state of agriculture; the bulls amount to 214,131; the oxen to 1,701,740; the cows to 3,909,959; the heifers to 856, 122. But we hasten to conduct the reader to the result the most important for him to know, and to which the details hitherto noticed are only an introduction and basis-which is, the sketch of the territorial wealth of France. The author fixes his estimation on the following statements. France, independently of Corsica, contains 52,000,000 hectares; the departments, are in number 85; the arrondissemens 368; the cantons 2659; the communes 36,990; country houses or habitations 3,000,000; town-houses 2,431,000; mills 76,000; workshops and manufactories 35,000; forges, furnaces, lime-kilns and for plaster 16,000; and lastly, the population of France, according to the last census, is 29,327,388 inhabitants. The cadastral operations already terminated by actual survey present the following results. There are in France, 11 Arable land 20. Coppice wood A Hectares 22,818,000 6,612,000 460,000 3,525,000 5. Meadows 3,488,000 6. Vines... 1,977,000 476 5o. Chesnut woods 406,000 So, Orchards 359,000 9". Kitchen gardens 328,000 19o. Ponds 213,000 1. Marshes 186,000 03 12o. Hop-garden✨✨ 60,000 13. Osier, Akler, Willow-beds 53,000 14 Olive-yards $43,000 -15% Quarries and Mines 28,000 16. Gardens, Groves, Pleasure-grounds 16,000 17o. Nurseries 23,000 180. Peat bogs 7,000 19°. Navigation and irrigation Canals 9,000 1200. Particular tracts of cultivation 80,000 9219. Waste-lands, Heaths 3,841,000 and taxed Total. 22°. Superficies covered with buildings There are therefore in France 45,445,000 more or less productive, and 6,555,000 that produce nothing, or very little; in the latter are the highways, 213,000 45,445,000 |