1.34 PEASANT PROPRIETORS 



sells them at two or two and a half years old. Lastly 

 every farmhouse has its still for the manufacture of spirits ; 

 large quantities of oil are extracted from walnuts ; and the 

 paper-works on the river Touve employ thousands of 

 artisans, who are also small landowners. 



In purely agricultural districts, where hired labour is- 

 cheap, or in mountainous and barren tracts, peasant pro- 

 prietors do not thrive. On the other hand, the system of 

 small farms worked by their owners succeeds wherever 

 population is dense, labour dear, manufacturing industries 

 abundant, and markets good for garden stuff, dairy 

 produce, or poultry. The absence or presence of peasant 

 proprietors depends on certain conditions of success, 

 without which no peasant proprietor is eager to buy the 

 land. They will not thrive wherever they are planted ; a 

 fact which is often overlooked by theorists who point to 

 the French peasant as a proof that owners of land will 

 make gardens out of deserts. The fact is, no French 

 peasant makes the attempt where it appears useless. If 

 he can command some specially fertilising substance like 

 the seaweed which the Breton peasant collects, or if he 

 enjoys exceptional advantages of climate like that of 

 Roscoff, his industry and energy know no limits, and he 

 will in a few years transform a wild coast into a cemture 

 doree. But it is not inland, on barren moors of heath, 

 ling, broom, and stunted pine, that he thrives or even 

 exists. A closer review of French farming than space 

 permits would prove the point that the presence or absence 

 of peasant proprietorship depends on the presence or 

 absence of some essential conditions of success.' 



The excessive subdivision of the soil is often urged 

 against the system in France. But the objection is based 

 * See ' Rural France,' Ediiiburgh Rcvien, October, 1887. 



