Peter Kropotkin Archive
Written: 1898
Source: Published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1898
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
In the Journal de l’Agriculture (2nd Feb., 1889) the following was said about the marcites of Milan:-
“On part of these meadows water runs constantly, on others it is left running for ten hours every week. The former give six crops every year; since February, eighty to 100 tons of grass, equivalent to twenty and twenty-five tons of dry hay, being obtained from the hectare (eight to ten tons per acres). Lower down, thirteen tons of dry hay per acre is the regular crop. Taking eighty acres placed in average conditions, they will yield fifty-six tons of green grass per hectare – that is, fourteen tons of dry hay, or the food of three milch cows to the hectare (two and a half acres). The rent of such meadows is from £8 to £9, 12s. per acre.”
For Indian corn, the advantages of irrigation are equally apparent. On irrigated lands, crops of from seventy-eight to eighty-nine bushels per acre are obtained, as against from fifty-six to sixty-seven bushels on unirrigated lands, also in Italy, and twenty-eight to thirty-three bushels in France (Garola, Les Cereales).