VIII AND OTHER COUNTRIES 157 



the extreme simplicity, in the other the extreme variety 

 of the (agricultural) problem/ and this, 'owing to the 

 immense variety of soils, character, crops, races, origins, 

 and social and economic conditions, which make an in- 

 finitely multiplied world of our apparent unity, 1 and it is 

 this variety which gives an opportunity to the peasant 

 proprietor/ 



A. Young once said that ownership will turn a desert 

 into gold. The worst of such phrases is that they are 

 often made an excuse for not thinking, or for abandoning 

 further inquiry. There is truth in the remark when the 

 conditions exist which are essential to success, but where 

 they do not exist the Frenchman is too shrewd to put the 

 saying to the test. At the same time it is certain that 

 the Frenchman has, in a pre-eminent degree, those habits 

 of careful and parsimonious cultivation which fit ' la petite 

 culture', and it is interesting here to be reminded of 

 the habits of the French Canadian, whose farm rarely 

 exceeds 50 acres, while the smallest English farm is rarely 

 less than 100. 



But, apart from these fundamental reasons, there are 

 historical explanations to be found. The manorial system 

 broke up much later in France than in England. In 

 England the villein commuted his services and gained the 

 practical, if not the legal power to leave his land much 

 earlier than in France, where there were not many free 

 rural landless labourers working for wages. It is true that 

 before the Revolution the peasant had in most of France 

 commuted his services for money payments, but he was 

 still bound by numerous and vexatious dues, and his actions 

 were restrained at every turn by the seignorial rights 

 of the lord. These seignorial rights were not all abolished 



1 Lavergne, L'l^conomie rurale de la France, p. 3. 



