378 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



selves becoming proprietors, the lands of the country were 

 destined to go into the hands of men without capital, too igno 

 rant to understand or learn the best modes of cultivation, and 

 without the power of applying, even if they knew, them. 



These objections are not wholly without force ; but as this 

 subject possesses considerable interest for many persons, I hope 

 to be excused for enlarging upon it. It happens with respect to 

 many things which are deemed evils, or from which evil conse 

 quences seem likely to result, that there is a compensating or 

 balancing power at work, which, if left free to operate, of itself 

 corrects the irregularities, restores the equilibrium, and prevents 

 the evils apprehended. If all France were to be cut up and 

 divided into pieces of ground of the size of a table-cloth, as. from 

 the comments made upon this law by those who know nothing 

 of its actual operation, one would suppose was likely soon to be 

 the case, we should expect a state of things extremely adverse 

 to the national prosperity. But it must be remembered, that 

 while the law requires an equal division of the land among his 

 children at the death of a proprietor, it does riot require that the 

 land should remain thus divided. The appropriation of it is left 

 optional with those who inherit it ; and in this, as in other cases, 

 they will be governed by their interests, their convenience, and 

 other nameless circumstances by which human conduct is ordi 

 narily influenced. A father dying and leaving several heirs, sons 

 and daughters, it is scarcely probable that they will all wish to 

 devote themselves to agriculture, and this too when the parts of 

 such property growing out of this division would be, either of 

 them, too small, under any circumstances, for the support of a 

 family. The result is, as we should expect it would be in such 

 case, that some one of the heirs purchases the rights of the 

 others, and the farm remains in its integrity. 



What, then, is the advantage of such a law ? It is, that it 

 leaves this matter, as it should be left, to the choice of the parties 

 concerned ; and that it in fact prevents the too great accumula 

 tion of landed property in the hands of individuals. There can 

 hardly be a greater evil, in countries where labor is abundant, 

 and population presses hard upon the means of subsistence, than 

 that immense tracts of land, which might be made productive, 

 should be locked up in the hands of individuals who will neither 

 use the land themselves, nor suffer it to be used by others. It 



