in the size of their properties than in the number of pro- 

 prietors. 1 They still hold about one quarter of the land, 

 and are 5,500,000 in number. 2 



Again, it is often assumed that the small owner 

 flourishes in every part of France. This is by no means 

 the case. He is rarely found in those parts which are the 

 great granaries of the country, that is, in the Beauce, 

 in the departments of Indre, Cher, Cher-et-Loir, and 

 Loiret, nor again in the departments of the SSW. 

 and SE. 



He survives and flourishes chiefly in those districts in 

 which the circumstances arc favourable; that is to say, 

 where ' la petite culture ' is profitable. In the neighbour- 

 hood of towns, such as the department of La Seine, 

 because of the demand for vegetables ; in the lands of the 

 vine, where much minute hand labour is required, or where 

 labour is very dear, or where domestic industries still 

 survive, or where the peasant can find extra work often 

 away from home for instance, in the department of the 

 Tarn-et-Garonne, whence the men go elsewhere to work 

 in harvest time, or in Auvergne, whence the men migrate 

 in the season to the towns and even to Paris, in search of 

 work as porters and water-carriers, while the rest of the 

 family look after the land 3 or again in the Morvan, 

 whence, I was told, the wives go off to Paris to earn 

 a little money as wet-nurses. 



'There is/ says Mr. Lavergne, 'a radical difference 

 between France and England. In the latter is to be found 



1 The book is in Russian, but a full account of it is to be found in 

 the Revue d'histoire moderne, iii. 156, 171 ; cf. also Khovalesky, 

 Revue internationale de Sociologie, ix. 489, 514 ; Political Science 

 Quarterly, The Manorial System ; Dec., 1908. 



2 Dumas, Econ. Journal, March, 1909, Land-system in France. 



8 Prothero, Pioneers, pp. 18, 20, 141 ; The pleasant land of France, 

 Edinburgh Review, vol. 166. 



