93 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



THE SMALL FARMER, AND THE NEW FIELD FOR HIS LABOURS. 



It was not only the agricultural labourers who weut 

 to the wall during the advance of prices which took 

 place at the close of the last century : the small working 

 farmer succumbed likewise. Many were the small 

 cultivators, and even small yeoman-farmers, who, 

 during those days of inflated agricultural prosperity 

 for which farmers afterwards suffered, w-ere reduced to 

 the state of day-labourers, and even became, like all 

 rural labourers of that period, recipients of parochial 

 relief. There is little room for doubt that in the pre- 

 sent state of agi'icultural progress the small farmers of 

 these days, where they exist, will succumb to the 

 larger. We may regi'et it ; but so it has been, and so it 

 will be. The inevitable agricultural tendency of the 

 present day is to the consolidation of farms. It is all 

 very well to talk of the small cultivators of Belgium ; 

 they farm on a different system to the small cultivators 

 of Bntain, and it is as impossible to indoctrinate the 

 latter with the habits of the former, as it would be to 

 teach them to dance in the French style, or to relish 

 French cookery. The experiment was tried in Ireland 

 of endeavouring to retain the small occupations of land 

 after the failure of the potato, which formed their basis. 

 The experiment proved, however, an utter failure, and 

 the Irish peasantry struck out for themselves the only 

 remedy in a self-supporting emigration. They trans- 

 ported themselves without capital to a country where 

 laud is cheap and labour dear, and where rough- 

 farming, in which the farmer does the greater portion 

 of the labour with his own hands and those of his 

 family, succeeds better than higher and more refined 

 farming carried on with hired and high-priced labour. 

 It is true that with all their passion for land in their 

 own country, the Irish emigrants to America have met 

 more remunerative employment than the cultivation of 

 the soil. It is satisfactory, however, to know that to 

 the small working farmer, possessed of a certain 

 amount of capital and with a family capable of assisting 

 him in the work of the farm, our North American 

 colonies hold out the prospect of land of the best 

 quality, which may be purchased for a sum which 

 would not do more than pay one year's rent of inferior 

 land in England, and where the more numerous his 

 family the better. It is not necessary that a farmer of 

 this description should plunge into the back-woods. 

 If he is in possession of a moderate amount of capital, 

 he will find plenty of partially- cleared farms, with log- 

 houses, which the owners will be ready to sell, while they 

 themselves plunge deeper into the forest. This passion 

 ibr removing appears to be one which, when a man has 

 made up his mind to emigrate, he finds it difficult to 

 shake off. 



By recent advices from Canada West, it appears 

 that many of the immigrants, of late, have been from 

 the class of small farmers of this country bringing out 

 a capital, which, however inadequate for high-farming 



here, is quite sufficient for the system of husbandry 

 pursued in a new country, where it answers better than 

 farming of a higher order ; whilst in this country it is 

 the least successful and the least able to compete with 

 the high farming of men possessing more abundant 

 resources. It appears, by advices from Canada, that 

 among the recent arrivals, there are a considerable 

 number of small farmers from England and Scotland. 

 To those labourers, too, who can raise the necessary 

 funds for their conveyance to Canada, that country 

 holds out the fairest prospect — high-priced labour, 

 low-priced food, and abundance of employment for them- 

 selves and their families. For female domestic servants, 

 too, it appears that there is a great demand. There is 

 equal demand in the Australian colonies for rough 

 labour of any kind, and, on the whole, that country 

 holds out better prospects to the labouring classes than 

 the gold-fields of Australia. To the inexperienced, 

 however, who know little of the hardships of the dig- 

 gings and their precarious jirospects, the diggings are 

 more attractive. There are, moreovei", free passages 

 to Australia for labourers, and none to Canada. For 

 small farmers, who wish to settle down at once as cul- 

 tivating proprietors, and who wish in emigrating not to 

 sever their connexion with the mother - country, 

 Canada West appears to be the spot. There they will 

 have a country, the aspect of which approaches more 

 that of the old country than Australia does; and a 

 country which, in the rapid strides it is making, quite 

 equals, if it does not surpass, the United States. The 

 Scottish peasantry are emigrating thither so fast, that 

 the farmers are beginning to be apprehensive of a 

 dearth of labour at home. We regard the apprehen- 

 sion of such a dearth in any part of the United King- 

 dom as futile, aided as we are by the continually in- 

 creasing appliances of machinery to agricultural 

 operations. As a social question, we rejoice to see the 

 peasantry of this country abandoning visionary agrarian 

 schemes for the prospects of independence which the 

 colonies afford. The waste-lands of the colonies are 

 the birth-right of the British peasantry, and they are 

 their best friends who teach them to regard them in that 

 light. The more, too, the colonies are peopled, the 

 greater becomes our means of maintaining an increased 

 population at home. They are far better times for 

 this country, and always have been, when two masters 

 are looking after one man, than those times, which most 

 of us can remember, at the close of the wars of the 

 French revolution, when the bubble of the agricultural 

 prosperity burst, and two men were running after one 

 master. Those were the days when poor Lord Liver- 

 pool was in constant trouble between agricultural and 

 manufacturing distress, "Swing riots, and blanketeers, 

 over-production and over-population, too much food 

 and too many mouths to eat it 1 



