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jealous and closely calculated economy, by leading him to fritter away on details the care and thought which are required for the general management, might ruin him. There is always considerable waste in large enterprises; it will not do for the manager of them to cultivate corners and patches. The large farmer wields a heavy capital with great skill and science, economizes human labor by the introduction of costly and powerful machines, and may either make or lose a fortune in His operations are of a sweeping character, and his returns are counted in the gross. He often makes more money by raising a smaller amount to the acre. To turn all his land into a kitchen garden would require a whole army of laborers, whose wages would eat up all his profits. The laborers would be fed, but he would sacrifice his capital. The method which he pursues has an opposite effect; he makes large profits, while the laborers are driven off the estate, and too often become dependent on public charity. Large farms economize human labor, it is true; but it depends on circumstances whether this is a benefit to the nation. Here in the United States, indeed, it would be a real saving, equivalent to the production of more wealth; but it is difficult to see what advantage it could bring to a country like England, where, in 1850, there were over 300,000 able-bodied male paupers.*

But this question respecting the comparative advantages of large and small farms can be best determined by observing the results of the two systems in actual operation, side by side. The following is taken from Mr. Laing's "Notes of a Traveller," First Series.

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Why should the physical and moral condition of this population [that of Tuscany] be so superior to that of the Neapolitans, or of the neighboring people in the Papal States? The soil and climate and productions are the same in all these countries. The difference must be accounted for by the happier distribution of the land in Tuscany. In 1836, Tuscany contained 1,436,785 inhabitants, and 130,190 landed estates. Deducting 7,901 estates belonging to towns, churches, or other corporate bodies, we have 122,289 belonging to the people, or, in other words, 48 families in every 100 have land of their

* Pashley on Pauperism and Poor Laws, p. 19.

own to live from. Can the striking difference in the physical and moral condition, and in the standard of living, between the people of Tuscany and those of the Papal States be ascribed to any other cause? The taxes are as heavy in Tuscany as in the dominions of the Pope; about 12s. 6d. sterling per head of the population in the one, and 12s. 10d. in the other. But in the whole Maremma of Rome, of about 30 leagues in length by 10 or 12 in breath, M. Chateauvieux reckons only 24 factors, or tenants of the large estates of the Roman nobles. From the frontier of the Neapolitan to that of the Tuscan state, the whole country is reckoned to be divided into about 600 landed estates. Compare the husbandry of Tuscany, the perfect system of drainage, for instance, in the strath of Arno, by drains between every two beds of land, all connected with a main drain, being our own lately introduced furrow tiledraining, but connected here with the irrigation as well as the draining of the land; - compare the clean state of the growing crops, the variety and succession of green crops for foddering cattle in the house all the year round, the attention to collecting manure, the garden-like cultivation of the whole face of the country; compare these with the desert waste of the Roman Maremma, or with the Papal country, of soil and productiveness as good as that of the vale of the Arno, the country about Foligno and Perugia; - compare the well-clothed, busy people, the smart country-girls at work about their cows' food, or their silkworm leaves, with the ragged, sallow, indolent population lounging about their doors in the Papal dominions, starving, and with nothing to do on the great estates; nay, compare the agricultural industry and operations in this land of small farms with the best of our large farm-districts, with Tweedside, or East Lothian, and snap your fingers at the wisdom of our Sir Johns, and all the host of our book-makers on agriculture, who bleat after each other that solemn saw of the thriving-tenantry-times of the war, that small farms are incompatible with a high and perfect state of cultivation. Scotland, or England, can produce no one tract of land to be compared to this strath of the Arno, not to say for productiveness, because that depends upon soil and climate, which we have not of similar quality to compare, but for industry and intelligence applied to husbandry, for perfect drainage, for irrigation, for

garden-like culture, for clean state of crops, for absence of all waste of land, labor, or manure, for good cultivation, in short, and the good condition of the laboring cultivator. These are points which admit of being compared between one farm and another, in the most distinct soils and climates. Our system of large farms will gain nothing in such a comparison with the husbandry of Tuscany, Flanders, or Switzerland, under a system of small farms."

In the isle of Guernsey, where the agricultural population is twice as dense as in England, the average wheat crop is at least 32 bushels to an acre; while the average English cropwith all the advantages arising from the application of immense capital, scientific husbandry, and agricultural machines, on which the advocates of large farms lay so much stress is but 21 bushels. An English cultivator, with his family, it is estimated, consumes one fifth of the product which he raises; then, if there were three cultivators where there is now but one, and if their united exertions should make the crop only two fifths greater than it was before, there would still be as great a surplus to send to market, though the number of families supported upon the land would be three times as great. In other words, as one cultivator raises 100 bushels, of which he is able to sell 80, so, if three cultivators can produce 140 bushels from the same land, they can still send 80 to market, and feed themselves and their families with the remainder. This is the case in Guernsey, where the average crop exceeds the average English crop by more than two fifths.

Large estates still more than large farms diminish the aggregate product of the country, because the owners of them devote so much land to purposes of mere ornament, ostentation, and luxury. When the territory is divided among small proprietors, as in France, Prussia, and the Netherlands, almost every acre of it is employed productively; it is all given to tillage, pasturage, gardening, or the growth of fuel and timber. But in Great Britain, large portions are reserved for parks, lawns, the chase, and preserving game. If land were abundant and cheap, indeed, there would be no reason to regret that many acres should be appropriated to such uses. But when complaints are made that the country is over-peopled, that population tends to outrun the means of subsistence, and that its

increase drives down agriculture successively to poorer and poorer soils, it is reasonable to inquire whether the gifts of Providence are improved to the utmost, or whether the scarcity of food be not owing to the luxury and wastefulness of the rich. Among other results of that systematic compulsory depopulation of the Highlands of Scotland which has been repeatedly mentioned, M. de Lavergne alludes to the "skilful turning to account of the wilderness, through the extraordinary profit derived from its game. Ptarmigan, blackcock, all kinds of water-fowl, and especially grouse, breed upon these moors in great plenty; fallow and red deer have also been artificially propagated upon them. Fashion has given great value to these sports. A hill stocked with game lets for £ 50 for the season. Shooting-lodges, built in the most retired spots, are let, including the right of shooting over the adjacent hills, at £500. What is called a forest — that is to say, several thousands of acres, not exactly planted with trees, but reserved for deer to the exclusion of all kinds of cattle brings an extravagant rent. The large Scotch proprietors, following the example of William the Conqueror, have laid out many of these forests upon their estates. Gentlemen go there at great expense, to enjoy the sport of shooting the fleet monarchs of these wilds in their precipitous retreats."

The parallel here suggested is a very significant one. William, in the stern exercise of his rights as a conqueror, resolved to make a new forest near Winchester, the usual place of his residence, that he might enjoy the pleasures of the chase; and for this purpose, says Hume, "he laid waste the country in Hampshire for an extent of thirty miles, expelled the inhabitants from their houses, seized their property, even demolished churches and convents, and made the sufferers no compensation for the injury." What he did under the rights of war, these Scottish lords have done under color of the rights of property. They have banished the inhabitants of several counties in the North of Scotland, from the homes which, according to the Celtic law and usage, belonged to them as much as to their chieftains, and have turned one portion of the district into a sheep-walk, and another into a wilderness, that they might enjoy the pleasures of the chase. The region thus depopulated is fifty times as large as that which the Norman converted into the New Forest.

M. de Lavergne apologizes, though rather faintly, for this proceeding. "People are beginning to murmur," he says, "against these last vestiges of ancient feudalism, contending that the deer are too few in number profitably to occupy the vast tracts set apart for them, and that it would be better to use them for feeding sheep. I can understand such an argument when the question concerns England, where certain wealthy proprietors still persist in keeping waste for their shootings large tracts of land in the middle of populous districts, that might otherwise bear crops; such, for example, is Cannoch Chase in Staffordshire, which contains nearly 15,000 acres; but in the Highlands of Scotland, I can scarcely believe that the loss is very great. A few thousands of sheep, more or less, would be no great addition to the national food; and then, again, the last remains of savage nature in Great Britain would be gone. To rob the country life of all its poetry, is going rather too far even in the interests of farming."

If the question were only between deer and sheep, as the inhabitants of this vast district, we might agree with M. de Lavergne, that it does not matter much which way it is decided, especially if we are to take his account of the condition of Sutherlandshire, whence a Highland clan has been driven to make room for flocks. "The depopulated lands," he says, "were divided into twenty-nine large sheep farms, averaging twenty-five thousand acres each. The hills serve for summer pasturage, and the glens or valleys for the winter. As for human inhabitants, there are none. If the sound of the bagpipe is heard among the rocks, it is no longer the gathering-call of warlike mountaineers, but the more peaceful amusement of a shepherd, who, in place of war and pillage, devotes his time to the care of sheep, and receives wages from a neighboring farmer. This is all that remains of an extinct race. One of these shepherds can look after five hundred sheep. There may be four or five hundred such upon these eight hundred thousand acres." In order to effect this improvement, "three thousand families were forced to quit the country of their fathers, and were transplanted into the new villages upon the coast. When resistance was shown, the agents of the Marchioness demolished their miserable habitations, and in some instances, in order to effect this more speedily, the huts were set on fire.”

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