Nature will do a great deal more to help France than any Parliament can accomplish. The prospects of this year's wheat harvest are announced as excellent. The area of land under cultivation has increased considerably, the use artificial manures and modern machinery has developed, and there is a fair prospect that' about seven-eighths of the corn needed for the bread supply of France will be produced in the country. According to official figures, 5,000,000 hectares (about 12,350,000 acres) of land have been ploughed and sown with wheat. This should produce 70,000,000 quintals of corn, leaving about 10,000,000 to be imported. Last year the home crop was small that over 35,000,000 had to be purchased abroad. This large corn crop is expected to save France six and a quarter milliards of francs (£250,000,000) and thus cause a considerable improvement in the value of the franc.
From the point of view of increased production, it is encouraging to find that many of the small farmers and peasants have so far abandoned their ingrained con-servetism as to adopt scientific methods of cultivation. There is 'a great demand for motor ploughs, motor tractors and all kinds of agricultural machinery worked by internal combustion engines. At the Paris Fair, just opened by President Deschanel, the busiest stalls are those concerned with agriculture and the new mechanical methods. Light motor ploughs for the vineyards, and heavier specimens which in reality ars demobilize ed whippet tanks, stand side by side in vivid green and red or blue and gold paint (the French farmer loves bright colours for his ploughs and harrows). All the firms exhibiting have booked orders for a long time ahead. French agriculturists have done well during the war, and now they are putting some of their profits into modern plant. The*land banks have been repaid more mortgages during the past two years than at any other period of the same length in modern times. A great deal of land has change1 hands. At one time the French farmer dreaded machinery which would require skilled mechanics and perhaps cause: the introduction of trade-union principles. So many farmers' sons have come back from the war with mechanical training that the objection to machinery is vanishing.
Tue three water-colour sketches of Court toilettes approved by the Queen, displayed at the Lord Chamberlain's Office, and proof positive of her Majesty's appreciation of a timely blind of modest elegance and economy in dress. Old extravagances and tyrannies in the form of the regulation Court train, a costly appendage of the dress, hick served no purpose in ordinary life and had to measure three yards from the shoulders and be one and a half yards in width at the extreme hem, are swept away. The veil, too, is abandoned, and so are the triple plumes, both of which added. considerably to the expense of the costume.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.