666
GERMAN EMPIRE : — PRUSSIA
Production and Industry. I, Agriculture.
The number of farms in Pmssia on June 5, 1882, and on June 14, 1895, was as follows : —
—
Under 1 hectare
1-10 hectares
10-100
hectares
Over
100 hectares
Total
1882 1895
1,456,724 1,649,134
1,178,625 1,236,393
384,408 402,209
20,439 20,390
3,040,196 3,308,126
The total area of the farms in 1882 was 26,581,300 hectares ; in 1895, 28,479,739 hectares.
These farms supported, 1895, a population of 10,948,476, of whom 4,633,055 were actively engaged in agriculture. The areas under the chief crops and the yield in metric tons per hectare in 1897-8 and the annual average yield for the period 1889-97 are as follows : —
—
1897-98
Average Yield 1889-97
Hectares
Yield
Wheat
Rye
Barley
Oats ..... Potatoes .... Hay (meadow)
1,111,854 4,547,889 877,206 2,618,003 2,086,913 3,271,764
1-59 1-13 1-32 1-14 9-68 2-71
1-33 0-96 1-20 1-08 8-05 2-22
The largest wheat-crops are grown in Silesia, Saxony, Rhineland, East Pmssia and Hanover ; rye is a common crop all over the Kingdom ; barley is produced in greatest quantities in Silesia and Saxony ; and oats in Silesia, East Prussia, Hanover, Rhineland, and other northern provinces. Silesia, Brandenburg, and Posen produce the most potatoes.
In 1896-97 Prussia contained 308 establishments engaged in the manufac- ture of beet-root sugar, which consumed 10,738,018 metric tons of beet-root in the production of 1,355,763 metric tons of raw sugar. In 1896-97 there were 5,503 breweries in action in Prussia, which brewed 27,680,273 hectolitres of beer, or 85 litres per head of the population.
In 1896-97 there were --6,213 distilleries in operation, which produced 2,550,915 hectolitres of alcohol.
II. Minerals.
The mineral riches of Prussia are very considerable. The coal-mines especially have developed greatly during the last half-century. The coal raised in Pmssia amounts to over 90 per cent, of the total coal produced in Germany, and is found mostly in Silesia, Westphalia, and the Rhine Province ; lignite being mainly worked in Saxony. The output of coal increased from 17,571,581 tons in 1848 to 84,253,393 tons in 1897, and the output of lignite in the same time from 8,118,553 tons to 24,222,911 tons.
Considerable quantities of iron are also raised in Prussia, chiefly in the
