126 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



in which every man of common intelligence, industry, frugality, 

 and sobriety, the great and certain elements of success in almost 

 every department of life, may become a freeholder, that is, the 

 possessor in fee-simple of more or less land, according to his 

 desires or wants. Here, in England, land is so dear as to be 

 f beyond almost the aspirations of men with small means ; still less 

 / is it within the reach of those, whose whole wealth consists in 

 / the labor of their own hands ; or it is held in large masses by 

 men whose active capital corresponds with the extent of their 

 possessions, and who, in such cases, would almost as soon sell 

 their teeth as their land ; or it is locked up by the laws of pri 

 mogeniture and entail, so that even those who hold it have not 

 \ always the power to alienate it. 



It has been said more than once to me, since the publication^ 

 of my First Report, that it is no evil that a man, and any man, j 

 cannot own a house and- land, and that the condition of a free- / 

 , holder is not preferable to that of a tenant. Certainly this must 

 I depend, to a great degree, upon the conditions under which the 



(tenancy is held. But, without pronouncing it an evil, and 

 leaving every one to enjoy his own opinion of the case as it is, 

 I deem it a great good where such a blessing as a home of 

 one s own, and a small farm of one s own, subject to no other 

 conditions than such as the common laws of the land extend 

 over it for protection, is within the reach and the early attain 

 ment even of the humblest member of the community. Now, 

 we have in New England, and in other parts of the country, a 

 great many instances, in which men and their families, pursuing 

 some handicraft or in-door trade, and professional men, with 

 small incomes, are the owners of houses in the country, with a 

 few acres of land attached, on which they are occupied in their 

 hours of recreation, or at seasons when the calls of their trade 

 or profession do not press too strongly upon them. While these 

 small farms furnish a large proportion of the supplies which they 

 and their families require from the garden or the field, they are 

 alike conducive to their physical, and, I add with equal confi 

 dence, to their moral health. To such persons the spade cul 

 tivation, and the minute and exact husbandry to which it leads, 

 would be of great importance. Among the Romans, seven acres\ 

 were regarded as an ample allowance for a family ; and it would \ 

 be extremely desirable to know what are, in fact, the productive \ 



