advantages of climate and with such variety of resource, is not a re-assuring precedent.[1]At this
- ↑ I have no personal acquaintance with the state of agriculture in France, but making every allowance for the improvement which has undoubtedly taken place of late years in French farming, (See App., p. 276) it is still a considerable way behind England and Belgium, and whatever progress is being made is rather in spite than in consequence of the extreme comminution of the soil. Even Mr. Mill admits the tendency to subdivision in France has been too great, though the cultivation of the vine is so peculiarly adapted to "la petite culture."
Native authors visit it with more serious reprobation.
"I know that ten years' produce per acre in France, as a whole (though not in its most improved districts) averages much less than in England."—Mills Polit. Econ. p. 189.
"The inferiority of French cultivation (which, taking the country as a whole, must be allowed to be real, though much exaggerated) is probably more owing to the lower general average of industrial skill and energy in that country, than to
tenant selling a part of his farm, in order to raise money for some temporary purpose.
"Some strange cases are detailed in the evidence of the extent to which lands have become subdivided by the operation of the above-mentioned practices. Amongst these, the statements of Lord Glengall, Mr. Kincaid, and Mr. Williamson, seem particularly worthy of attention. The last of these mentions 387 Irish acres, of which but 167 acres are arable, held by 110 tenants."—Dig. Dev. Com. p. 410.
"The provision made by farmers for their daughters is stated to be in many cases very much larger than their capital warrants. It appears too that on the death of a tenant, he frequently either bequeaths his farm to be divided among his children, or disposes of it to one son, but charged with sums of money payable to the other children, often utterly out of proportion to the value of the farm. It is asserted that this practice, by subdividing the farms into portions too small for the support of the occupiers, or by depriving the tenant of the
