THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



245 



private labour. In the former, the insufficiency of the 

 harvest has been counteracted, more than elsewhere, by- 

 ingenious combinations, tending, on the one hand, to 

 sell bread below the normal price, and, on the otiier, to 

 create public works upon a scale till then unheard of. 

 Bread and labour assured, what more was required to 

 attract the populations ? They have only too well 

 responded to the appeal, and it is thus that in the five 

 years from 1851 to 185G, the total population of France 

 increased only 256,19 i, whilst that of Paris, taken alone, 

 has increased to the enormous extent of 305,354 inhabi- 

 tants. From whence, then, arises this excess of the 

 Parisian population, if not chiefly from the contingent 

 made up of the deserters of our agricultural depart- 

 ments ? 



But this is not all; for we must not only look at the 

 figures in this question of depopulation of the country 

 districts: we must look also, and above all, at the quality 

 of the emigrants. Now, it has been found that the re- 

 quirements of war have exacted the formation of a 

 numerous army ; here is at once an enormous tribute 

 levied chiefly upon the most effective portion, the most 

 productive of our rural population. But we must not 

 speak of this, for glory is the consummation of the 

 tribute. Let us speak of another portion of the emigra- 

 tion — that which has recruited the army from amongst 

 workmen, masons , carpenters, navigators, and other 

 building workmen. Can we believe t'uat the desertion 

 of these has not been more sensibly felt in our rural 

 districts, in that, generally, it acts upon those men in 

 the strength of life, and such as in regard to intelligence 

 and activity might justly pass for the elite of the work- 

 ing population of our villages .' Truly such questions 

 are quite common-place; for there is no one who does 

 not know that in the actual state of popular prejudices 

 it is those who are the least favoured by Nature and 

 education who are left in our villages. 



The arm of ridicule is very powerful in France, but 

 frequently it is only the shaft of wit against good sense ; 

 and such is the course of things that, sooner or later — 

 too late, unfortunately — good sense carries the day. A 

 day will come, therefore, in which public opinion will 

 do ample justice for that strange accusation launched 

 against those writers who, in our day, have blamed the 

 extravagant luxury of the cities. They have been repre- 

 sented as false puritans, as men who do not comprehend 

 the necessities of our civilization ; as pessimists, who, 

 for example, would wish to see Paris laid in ruins. This 

 is, in reality, the disastrous war. It is not necessary 

 that Paris should cease to be embellished : the whole 

 question is, to hold an even balance between the expenses 

 which may concur in ameliorating a residence in cities, 

 and those which have for their object the amelioration of 

 the rural viability, the clearing of the downs and moun- 

 tains, the management of the fluvial waters, &c. We are 

 beginning to engage in this course of reparation towards 

 the poor districts ; and M. de Lavergne properly quali- 

 fies as a good law that, by virtue of which the State 

 charges itself to execute the work of planting on the plains 

 of Bordeaux to the extent of a sum of 6,000,000 francs. 



A deputy of the Legislative Corps, M. Guillaumin, 

 justly remarked, in the discussion on the expenditure of 

 the Budget of 1858, that out of a sum total of 

 1,716,986,190 francs, the budget for public agricultural 

 works figured simply to the amount of 1,850,000 francs; 

 appropriated to the rendering healthy cr renewing the 

 forests of Sologne, Doubes, Gascony, Brisse, and 

 Corsica — all countries in which fevers decimate the 

 population. Certainly, looking at these suras, the first 

 so large and the second so small, we cannot say that the 

 rural population have taken the lion's share. And yet, 

 at a period in which sanitary questions, so interesting to 

 the working classes, have assumed so much importance, 



what work can be more beneficial than that of rendering 

 healthy the unfortunate countries which up to the 

 present time have known little of our civilization except 

 from the tax-gatherer and the recruiting-serjeanl ? 

 What unknown miseries exist in these countries! which, 

 after all, demand of the State only what it has done for 

 the richer ones— namely, roads for traffic and sanitary 

 works. 



As a general principle, M. de Lavergne is not one of 

 those writers who demand on all occasions the inter- 

 vention of the State in matters of interest, either agri- 

 cultural or manufacturing. He does not wish the State 

 to do too many things ; for he knows that that system 

 might be construed, to the great detriment of agricul- 

 ture, into an increase of taxes and functionaries. He 

 prefers much that the country acquire the habit of 

 doing by itself, so far as possible, its agricultural and 

 industrial aff"airs ; for he is persuaded that it is, above 

 all, by the exercise of individual exertion, that a nation 

 learns to conquer and preserve all .that gives richep, 

 power, and stability. We can only applaud such doc- 

 trines, being those of a good political economy. They 

 teach the love of labour, and divest governments of the 

 terrible responsibility imposed upon them by contrary 

 doctrines, especially in what concerns salaries and the 

 question of sustenance. To this extent, therefore, it is 

 desirable for all, governors or governed, that the doctrine 

 of individual initiative, thus understood, should pene- 

 trate into all social circles. The result would not be 

 that the State would have nothing to do for agriculture ; 

 it would still be at least evident that the public expen~ 

 diture ought to bear only upon objects with which the 

 citizens, whether separately or in association, cannot be 

 employed. Now in the actual state of things, it is cer- 

 tain that many great agricultural works, and operations 

 of public utility, such as the replanting of mountains 

 and downs, or the rendering healthy insalubrious coun- 

 tries, constitute in the highest degree works executed at 

 the charge of the whole country. Compelled to become 

 a manufacturing and commercial nation, we have for a 

 length of time already concentrated the strongest part 

 of our public resources in the improvement of the 

 richest districts ; and it is time that the poor ones, the 

 disinherited countries, should, in their turns, also have a 

 place in the budget of public works. To say that these 

 poor districts will never reimburse by their own riches the 

 advances of the budget, is to view a great question on 

 its weakest side, and to forget what those countries, now 

 provided with roads and openings, were themselves, 

 before they became the theatre of great public works. 



M. Guillaumin, the deputy of whom I have spoken 

 already, said again, in the Corps Legislatif, in continu- 

 ing his idea of public agricultural works: " Suppose 

 that a capitalist, entering upon a healthy soil, com- 

 menced by making costly constructions, by furnishing 

 his stables with selected beasts, by establishing from 

 them splendid teams— by creating a museum of perfect 

 instruments, without reserving capital to purchase 

 manure, carry out the drainage, marling, irrigations, 

 &c., which are, in cultivation, reproductive expenses ; 

 should we not have a right to say to that capitalist, 

 ' You have badly arranged the employment of your 

 funds, and have neglected the expenses productive of 

 riches ' .' " 



Well 1 it is not necessary that a State that is called 

 France should subject itself to the same reproach. In 

 other terms, that the expenditures of luxury and utility, 

 for the embellishment of cities and those dispersed over 

 wealthy territories, should at the same time overlook 

 those great blots called La Bresse, La Sologne, and many 

 other countries. In these there are productive expenses 

 to be incurred. It does not simply consist in increasing 

 our grain and cattle, but to carry labour to the band of 



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