3S6 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



laboring classes, have every where been acknowledged ; but 

 under the best circumstances, the allotment system can never be 

 a substitute for that by which the ownership of the land is itself 

 attainable. 



I will not contest the point that great improvements can only 

 be expected to take place on large estates and with the help of 

 large capital ; yet, on estates of a medium size, such as a hundred 

 or even fifty acres, these are, perhaps, more likely to take place 

 than on estates of a much larger size, as being ordinarily more 

 within the reach of most men the majority of farmers being 

 men of restricted capital. The immense improvements in diking 

 and embankments, and in redeeming land from the sea, which 

 have been made in Holland, and in Lincolnshire and Cambridge 

 shire, in England, could only have been effected by the union 

 of large bodies of proprietors. No single fortune is any where 

 competent to such enterprises. 



I will not deny that under a system of large farms more produce 

 may be for sale ; and, in a commercial view, more money will 

 be made, and larger fortunes accumulated. But I cannot agree 

 that the wealth of a community, held as it ordinarily is held, is 

 the standard of its prosperity. That undoubtedly is the happiest 

 condition of society, where none are over-rich, and none ex 

 tremely poor ; where one is not continually offended by those 

 striking contrasts of enormous wealth and extreme destitution, 

 which some countries present. That condition of society is 

 undoubtedly above all others to be preferred, where the power of 

 bettering our condition is, as far as possible, equally enjoyed by 

 every man, and certainly not denied to any one ; and where 

 every possible encouragement and facility are given to the exer 

 tion of this power. It is often a great charity to help our neigh 

 bor ; but the best and wisest of all forms, in which this charity 

 can be exercised, is that, when a man helps his neighbor to help 

 himself. 



