THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



305 



it was found that not only were the holders impover- 

 ished to such a degree as to be compelled to subsist on 

 the coarsest description of food, but that the landlord 

 shared the same fate ; whilst the land was cultivated in 

 the most barbarous manner, from the entire ignorance 

 of the occupiers in regard to improvements. It will 

 scarcely be believed by an English or Scotch farmer that 

 in a district of Ireland, when it was proposed, a few 

 years ago, to use the plough instead of the spade, the 

 proposition was rejected by acclamation, because it 

 would reduce the price of band-labour. 



The famine of 184G-7 broke down the cottier-farm 

 system in Ireland, and the Encumbered Estates Court 

 has transferred the land from the hands of impoverished 

 to those of wealthy proprietors, who have generally 

 divided it into large holdings ; and the immediate con- 

 sequence is, that agriculture in Ireland is fast assimi- 

 lating itself in character to that of England and Scot- 

 land. Nor is this the only beneficial effect ; for the 

 late cottier-farmer, now become a labourer, is far better 

 off, labour having risen in value to thr£e and four times 

 its former rate ; so that the man who formerly lived 

 solely on potatoes and butter-milk, is now eating cereal 

 food ; and thousands who scarcely saw the colour of 

 money from one year to another, receive from Is. to 2s. 

 6d. per day, according to the work and the season. 



With respect to England, we have ourselves been con- 

 nected with parishes, a considerable portion of which 

 was in the hands of peasant-proprietors, or let in small 

 allotments. We did not know one of these who ma- 

 naged to gain more than a bare living,* whilst the land 

 itself was in a condition that inflicted disgrace upon both 

 owner and tenant, although the latter was by no means 

 over-rented. 



The grand argument of the economists in favour of 

 the small-farm system is, that by it a much greater 

 number of inhabitants are supported than by the oppo- 

 site. We fully admit that, whilst things go on smoothly, 

 the sub-division of the land is calculated to increase a 

 population ; but the question is, what is the social con- 

 dition of the people under it ? and how far are they, pre- 

 pared to bear reverses ? The reply to both these ques- 

 tions is to be found in the condition of Ireland up to 

 1848. Before the famine of 1846-7, it was impossible 

 for the people to exist in a state of greater poverty and 

 wretchedness; and so ill were they prepared for any 

 calamity, that the loss of the potato crop, which would 

 scarcely have been felt by the labouring class in Eng- 

 land, struck down the entire rural population, and re- 

 duced both the landowner and his tenantry to pauperism, 

 if universal recourse to eleemosynary assistance can be 

 called so. 



One great evil of the system arises from the necessity 

 of the small farmer seeking employment from his 

 wealthier neighbour, both to fill up his time and to in- 

 crease his means of paying his rent. And as he can 

 only obtain it at the very time when his own land re- 

 quires his attention, he is compelled to drive off the 

 cultivation of the latter until his employer has finished ; 



• Almost to a man these peasant-farmers were poachers, smug- 

 glers, wreckers, fowl stealers, &c., and would turn their hands 

 to any indirect but ready way of making up an income. 



when it is too late to afford the probability of a good 

 result. 



In a national point of view, there cannot be a doubt 

 of the superiority of the aggregative system over its 

 opposite ; more especially in a country like the United 

 Kingdom, possessing extensive and flourishing manufac- 

 turing and mining establishments. By these, whatever 

 surplus of labour there may be, arising from the increase 

 of the population, it is amply provided for, independently 

 of agriculture ; whilst by the improvements introduced, 

 and the substitution of machinery in the more onerous 

 departments of rural economy, not only is a great saving 

 of human strength effected, by which the life of the 

 labourer and a prolongation of his efficiency are rendered 

 more probable, but his hands are freed, to be employed 

 in carrying out other important operations which have 

 hitherto been lost sight of, or neglected. 



We are aware that, in former times, when the popu- 

 lation was thin and land abundant, when money was 

 scarce and taxation light, the class of yeomen-proprietors 

 we have spoken of were almost the only respectable body 

 of men between the aristocracy and the peasantry, and 

 possessed considerable influence in the state as freehold- 

 ers. To them, in a large measure, we owe the freedom 

 we enjoy, for they united alternately with the class above 

 and that below them, in resisting the power of the 

 Crown, and in consolidating and securing the rights of 

 the people. But by the changes which have taken place 

 in the constitution of society, and the creation of new 

 and important classes, who by their large and rapid 

 accumulations of wealth have acquired the ascendancy 

 in every department of national affairs, the yeomanry 

 class, if it still existed, would have lost its prestige as an 

 influential political body; whilst, for the reasons we 

 have stated, it would have stood in the way of those 

 improvements in agriculture which their successors, the 

 tenant farmers, have introdueed anl can alone support. 



With respect to France, we are glad to find that efforts 

 are making by enlightened men in that country to raise 

 French agriculture to a par with that of England. 

 Something may be effected in this way by great exer- 

 tions ; but we venture to predict that whilst the subdi- 

 vision of the land continues to be cherished by the Go- 

 vernment as the main support of the throne, agriculture 

 must remain at a low ebb, and improvements requiring 

 much outlay must be confined to the fev? large land- 

 holders who now possess the power, the intelligence, 

 and consequently the disposition to carry them out. 

 Nothing could illustrate the difference in result of the 

 two systems better than the actual produce of agricul- 

 ture in the two countries. With a territory half as large 

 again as that of the United Kingdom, a soil of far greater 

 average fertility, and a climate more favourable to the 

 growth of cereals, France produces not more than half 

 the quantity of wheat per acre, nor more than half the 

 amount of butcher's meat upon a given area of land, 

 that is produced in England, or even the United King- 

 dom generally ; the proportions being 1.3| bushels of 

 wheat per acre in France, and 28 bushels in the United 

 Kingdom, with an equally disproportioned produce of 

 meat. 



