French government adopted tariff protection, including the Méline tariff of 1892. The Méline Tariff was levelled on grain imports and stopped the fall of prices, leading to a substantial rise in agricultural wages. From the 1860s agricultural prices began to stagnate, and the general fall of prices caused a “great depression” in agriculture between 1874 and 1895. The strong growth in worldwide agricultural output of previous decades culminated in a glut of foodstuffs on world markets once transportation costs, hitherto prohibitively high, fell. Cereal prices, the first to experience price declines, were 27% lower in 1895 compared to their 1871-75 levels. Land lost about one third of its value between 1879 and 1913, caused not just by the agricultural crisis but by declining population densities in the countryside. Production stagnated, with the mean annual growth in agricultural production 0.26% between 1865 and 1900. Mean annual production fell by 0.8% in the years 1874-8 and 1889–93. The phylloxera outbreak ravaged French vineyards, reducing French wine output by two thirds between 1875 and 1889. In 1878, one quarter of French vineyards were affected by phylloxera. Wine production, which stood at 84 million hectoliters in 1875, declined sharply to below 40 million for a period of 15 years. Local vineyards perished and the market for table wines was overtaken by producers of low quality wine in Lower Languedoc, and Algerian wines. The industry recovered as resistant varieties of grape vine were gradually introduced from North America. From 1897, healthy economic growth on a par with that of 1815-1848 resumed. It was aided by the extension of iron mining in Lorraine and the birth of new industries like automobile manufacture, electricity, aluminum and nickel mining. 1914–1944 The overall growth rate of the French economy shows a very strong performance in the 1920s and again in the 1960s, with poor performances in the 1910s, 1930s, and 1990s. World War I The economy was critically hurt by the German seizure of major industrial areas in the northeast. While the occupied area in 1913 contained only 14% of France's industrial workers, it produced 58% of the steel, and 40% of the coal. Considerable relief came with the massive influx of American food, money and raw materials in 1917–1928. The Dalbiez Law of August 1915 set the number of workers required for the different sectors of the war economy, in an attempt to balance the labor needs of