by those animals or by buffaloes. Sheep, goats,
and pigs are also reared in large quantities.
The wool of the first-named is used for spinning and
weaving, and sheepskins with the wool left on are
worn as winter garments. Cheese is also manufactured
from sheep’s milk, and a curious custom in Roumania
is to make the cheese in the form of a long thin cylinder,
wrapping bark tightly round it in the manufacture.
From this slices are cut, bark and all, and served
to the guest; this gives the cheese a slight, but not
disagreeable, flavour of bark. Of cheese, wool,
butter, and lard, considerable quantities are exported
annually to Transylvania, Bulgaria, and Turkey.[58]
So far as England is concerned, the only other products
besides cereals, which we receive, are small quantities
of linseed and rapeseed; but Roumania produces millet,
which is coming into increased consumption, rye, beans,
beetroot, which is converted into sugar in two existing
factories, flax, hemp, and, as we have already said,
vines and every kind of fruit and garden produce.
Her soil is capable of growing, and formerly did produce,
very good tobacco; but in this matter she has shared
the fate of Ireland, for the necessity of levying a
tax on the article led to the suppression of its growth
in the country; and, lastly, we were assured by able
agriculturists that there is no reason why there should
not also be raised in Roumania a plant which, of all
others, ministers most largely to the comfort of man
and the prosperity of the land of its production,
namely, cotton.
[Footnote 54: If the reader refers to various
works on the subject, Aurelian, Obedenare, Consul
Vivian’s report, &c., he will find what appear
to be distinct though approximate estimates, but they
are really one and the same, in hectares (2.47 acres),
pogones (1-1/4 acres), and acres; and in none of them
is the territorial change of 1878 considered.
We received a set of statistics on the subject as relating
to 1880, whilst at Bucarest, but on comparing them
with Aurelian’s work published in 1866 we found
the same figures there. The following is the
approximate proportion of cultivated land in pogones
(1-1/4 acre):—
Cereals, gardens, vines 4,945,708
Pasture and hay 7,693,910
Forests 4,029,947
Uncultivated 7,574,336
__________
Total 25,243,901
]
[Footnote 55: Any of our readers who desire detailed
information concerning the condition of Roumanian
agriculture and manufactures will find it in a report
which was furnished to his government last year by
M.J. Jooris, the Belgian Minister at Bucarest.
No doubt the Belgian Government, has published it
in pamphlet form; if not it will be found in extenso
in La Bourse, Bucarest, July 27, August 2, 9,
and 23, 1881.]
[Footnote 56: See Vivian’s report, 1875,
Obedenare’s table (p. 99), and M. Jooris’s
report. The last named gives the ratio as—maize
22, wheat 15, barley 7, rye and oats 1.]