62 THE GREEN RISING 



policy of protecting the rights of tenant farmers 

 in the improvement made on the land they culti- 

 vate has had a tendency to discourage farm owner- 

 ship, it has resulted in greater interest on the part 

 of the tenant in maintaining soil fertility, adopting 

 a better system of crop rotation, and the improve- 

 ment of farm life conditions in general. 



The agrarian movement in France has liberated 

 the French peasant from the thraldom of feudal 

 traditions and greatly increased his desire to own a 

 small farm of his own. The extent to which this 

 tendency has operated is indicated by the fact that 

 out of a total of 5,300,000 landholdings before the 

 War, 4,500,000, or 85 per cent, were less than 25 

 acres, and more than 2,000,000 were less than two 

 and a half acres. Most of these small holdings are 

 in the northern part of France in the devastated 

 territory. One of the effects of the fighting in this 

 region was the obliteration of many of the original 

 boundaries of the small proprietorships. In the 

 work of restoration it has been found less expensive 

 and more satisfactory to consolidate many of these 

 small holdings, thus increasing the size of the in- 

 dividual farm. 



The thrifty little country of Holland is confronted 

 with the problem of increasing the arable land to 

 supply the needs of a rapidly increasing population. 

 Recent statistics show that there are 205 people to 

 the square mile; whereas in France there are only 

 74, in the United States 11, in Argentina 3, and in 



