1836.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



613 



esty; for a farmer's profit — his success — his me- 

 rit, was taxed exactly in proportion to the quan- 

 tum; a sure method of putting a period to the ex- 

 istence of either profit, success, or merit. The 

 farmers are really poor, or apparently poor, since a 

 rich man will affect poverty to escape the arbitrary 

 rise of a tax, which professes to be in proportion to 

 his power of bearing it: hence poor cattle, poor 

 implements, and poor dung-hills, even on the farms 

 of men who could afford the best. What a ruin- 

 ous and detestable system, and how surely calcu- 

 lated to slop the current of the wealth of the sove- 

 reign, as well as of his people! What man of com- 

 mon sense, and feeling, can lament the fall of the 

 government that conducted itself on such princi- 

 ples? And who can justly condemn the people for 

 their violence, in wresting from the nobility and 

 clergy those privileges and distinctions, which 

 they had used so unworthily, to the depression and 

 ruin of all the inferior classes? These taxes, united 

 with the burthensome and odious feudal rights 

 and impositions of the seigneurs, prevented all in- 

 vestment of capital, which could not be removed 

 at pleasure, from the land: the evil was not so much 

 a general want of capital in the kingdom, as an 

 apprehension of fixing it on land, where it would 

 of necessity be exposed to the rapine of regal and 

 noble harpies; that this was the fact, we find from 

 the case of the rich grazing districts of Normandy, 

 where no want of capital was heard of j yet such 

 lands demand a larger sum to stock than any 

 other; a sum equal to the amplest improvement of 

 the poorest and most difficult soils. Why then 

 should not a proper stock be found on arable as 

 well as on pasture lands? For an obvious reason; 

 the capital invested in fat oxen and sheep is re- 

 moveable at a moment's warning; and, being ev- 

 ery year renewed, the grazier has an annual op- 

 portunity of withdrawing from business; he has 

 consequently a sort of independence, utterly un- 

 known to an arable farmer, who has the least idea 

 of improving his land, or of keeping a proper 

 stock of implements and manure. The knowledge 

 of this circumstance keeps the tyrants in order, and 

 makes them tender in impositions, which being 

 evaded, would leave the most valuable land in the 

 kingdom without the means of being rendered 

 productive. Warmly as one must congratulate 

 human feelings, upon a nation's throwing off the 

 yoke of such detestable burthens, we cannot but 

 regret and condemn the idea of those visionary, 

 systematic, pseulo politicians, the cecnnomistes, 

 which has so infected the National Assembly, as 

 to allow the proposal even to be received, of lay- 

 ing & proportional land-tax of thirteen million ster- 

 ling. This the present democratic principles will 

 certainly keep proportional, since it is the wealthy 

 who can alone improve; and the poor, with power 

 in their hands, will always take care to tax the 

 improvements of the rich. If this new system be 

 not guarded with clauses, of which no trace ap- 

 pears at present, the agriculture of the kingdom 

 will no more be able to raise its head, than under 

 the old system. But this is not the place to dis- 

 cuss that important question. In regard to the 

 best means of remedying the evils of metaying, 

 they certainly consist in the proprietor's farming 

 his own lands till improved, and then letting them 

 at a money rent, without the stock, if he can find 

 farmers to hire; but it not, lending the stock at in- 

 terest. Thus favored, the farmers would, tinder a 



good government and eased of tythes, presently 

 grow rich, and, in all probability, would, for the 

 most part, free themselves from tlje debt in twen- 

 ty-five or thirty years; and, with good husbandly, 

 even in a single, lease of twenty-one years; but 

 with their present wretched systems of cropping, 

 and deficiency of cattle and sheep, they would be 

 a century effecting it. If a landlord could not, or 

 would not, farm himself, the next method would 

 be, to let live stock and land at a money rent, tor 

 twenty-one years, the tenant, at the expiration, 

 paying him in money the original value of the live 

 stoclc, and subject to all hazard and losses. There 

 can be no doubt but such a system, with a good 

 mode of taxation and freedom from tythes, would 

 enable the metayer in that term to become at least 

 capable of carrying on his business, without any 

 assistance in future from his landlord. 



Size of Farms. — I have treated at large of this 

 subject in my tours through England, and in the 

 jlnnals of sJgriculiure, vol. vii. p. 510; at present, 

 therefore, I shall briefly touch upon some circum- 

 stances more peculiarly arising from the husbandry 

 of France. I shall begin by asserting, with confi- 

 dence, that I never saw a single instance of good 

 husbandry on a small farm, except on soils of the 

 greatest fertility. Flanders is always an excep- 

 tion; on that rich, deep, and putrid soil, in the ex- 

 uberant plain of Alsace, and in the deep and fer- 

 tile borders of the Garonne, the land is so good, 

 that it must be perversity alone that can contrive 

 very bad husbandry; but on all inferior soils, that 

 is to say, through nine-tenths of the kingdom, and 

 in some instances even on very rich land, as, for 

 instance, in Normandy, the husbandry is execra- 

 ble. I may farther observe, that whenever bad 

 management is found in those rich and well culti- 

 vated districts, it is sure to be found on small farms. 

 When, therefore, I observed in many cahiers of 

 the three orders, a demand to limit, the size of 

 farms, and great panegyricks on small ones, I 

 could not but conclude, that the townsmen who 

 drew up those instructions knew nothing of the 

 practice of agriculture, except the vulgar errors 

 which float in every country upon that subject.* 

 This inquiry is of so much importance to every 

 nation, that it ought to depend as much as possi- 

 ble on facts, and of course to be handled by those 

 only who practice agriculture as well as under- 

 stand it. The following questions naturally arise. 

 Is it the gross produce of husbandry that should 

 chiefly be considered? Or the greatest produce 

 that can be carried to market? Or is it the net pro- 

 fit? Should the populousness arising from cultiva- 

 tion be the guide? Or should the ease and happi- 

 ness of the cultivators be only had in view? These 

 questions might be multiplied, but they are suffi- 

 cient for unfolding the inquiry. It will probably 

 be found, that no one point is singly to be attended 

 to, but an aggregate of all, in due proportions. 



The gross produce cannot be alone considered, 

 for this simple reason, that so many hands may be 

 employed to raise the largest, as to afford none for 

 market; in which case there could be no towns, no 

 manufactures, but merely domestic ones; no army, 

 no navy, no shipping. Such an arrangement, 



* Cahier de Dourdon, p. 17, Crapy, p. 5 — Estampe*, 

 p. 27, — Pari<!, p. 41. — Provins and Montereaux, p. SI 



