232 PEASANT PROPRIETARY ABROAD 



still further divided, the morcellement has already gone 

 so far that some of the holdings are of the most di- 

 minutive proportions, and the fear of what may follow 

 from still further subdivision is one of the reasons for 

 those ' two-children families ' which have led in so 

 marked a degree to the decline in the native population 

 of France. 



Even, again, a property of 20 or 25 acres may be 

 represented by 30, 40, or 50 small patches and parcels 

 of land scattered over an entire commune. Members 

 of a family and also neighbouring proprietors ought, 

 of course, to arrange an exchange of such patches, in 

 order to concentrate the individual properties, reduce 

 the amount of labour and the cost of working, and 

 facilitate the use of agricultural machines. But the 

 greed for land is so great among the peasantry, the 

 jealousy and the mistrust of neighbours are so intense, 

 and the hatreds that arise are so bitter, that amicable 

 arrangements are often far less likely than constant 

 disputes and bickerings, if not interminable lawsuits 

 as well. 



In the cultivation of these scattered fragments of 

 land the practice followed by successive generations of 

 peasant proprietors of France has been to produce a 

 little of everything vines, vegetables, corn, oats, barley, 

 hemp, etc. on the same soil irrespective of its suita- 

 bility for such crops, the great idea of the cultivator 

 being that he should avoid spending any money on 

 the supply of his domestic wants. When purchase 

 becomes unavoidable, he hopes to effect it by a system 

 of barter, so that the sows in the stocking may remain 

 intact. But the work of cultivating, mainly by hand, 

 so many separate morsels of land, for the production of 

 so many different crops, represents a degree of toil that 

 has often been only slavery under another name. 



