644 



F A R M E R 



R E G I S T E R 



[No. 11 



hough perfectly consistent with the Count de 

 Mirabeau's system, of an equal dispersion of a 

 people over their whole territory, is yet so truly 

 visionary, that it does not demand a moment's at- 

 tention. 



The net profit of husbandry cannot possibly be 

 the guide, because the most uncultivated spots 

 may be attended with a greater net profit on the 

 capital employed, than the richest gardens; as a 

 mere warren, sheep-walk, &c. 



Populousness cannot be a sale guide in the in- 

 quiry, because if it be alone attended to, it infalli- 

 bly destroys itself by excess of misery. There 

 can be no merit in any system that breeds people 

 to starve; food and employment (towns) must, 

 therefore, be in view as well as people. 



The ease and happiness of cultivators alone 

 ■cannot be our guide, because they may be easier 

 and happier in the midst of a howling desert, than 

 in the gardens of Montreuil. 



I am not absolutely satisfied with the greatest 

 produce that can be carried to market, but it conies 

 infinitely nearer to the truth than any of the rest; 

 it includes a considerable gross produce; it implies 

 a great net profit; and indicates, exactly in propor- 

 tion to its amount, that populousness which is 

 found in towns, and that which ought to depend 

 on manufactures; it secures the ease of the culti- 

 vating classes; it enables the farmer to employ 

 much labor, and, what is of more consequence, to 

 pay it well. 



This leading proposition, being thus far satisfac- 

 torily ascertained, on comparison with the others, 

 we are able to determine that that size of farms is 

 most beneficial, in general, which secures the 

 greatest produce in the market; or, in other words, 

 converted into money. Now, in order thus to 

 command a great surplus, above what, is consum- 

 ed by men and their iamilies employed or depend- 

 ing on the cultivation, every species of good hus- 

 bandry must be exerted. Lands already in culture 

 must be kept improving; great stocks of cattle and 

 sheep supported; every sort of manure that can 

 be procured used plentifully; draining, irrigating, 

 folding, hoeing, marling, claying, liming, inclosing, 

 all must be exerted with activity and vigor: — no 

 scrap of waste land left in a neglected state: — all 

 improved; all pushing forward towards perfection; 

 and the farmer encouraged, by the profit of his un- 

 dertakings, to invest his savings in fresh exertions, 

 that he may receive that compound interest so 

 practicable for the good farmer. The sized farm 

 that best effects all these works, will certainly car- 

 ry to market the greatest surplus produce. I have 

 attended, with great, care and impartiality, (o the 

 result of this inquiry throughout the kingdom; 

 and though in many provinces the husbandry is so 

 infamously bad, as to yield a choice only of evils, 

 yet I may safely assert, that on farms of 300 to 

 WO acres it is infinitely better than on little ones, 

 and supplies the market with a produce beyond 

 all comparison superior. But by farms 1 mean al- 

 ways occupations, and by no means such as are 

 hired by middle men to re-let to little metayers* 



* Metayers are a numerous and wretchedly poor class 

 of tenants, who obtain not only the land, but the stock, 

 seed, &c. from the landlord, and pay half the produce, 

 as rent. Their system of tillage was generally of the 

 worst kind, and the rent as high as such tillage could 

 passiblypay. Ed. Farm. Res. 



There is nothing strange in the bad husbandry so 

 common on little farms; by u hich 1 mean such as are 

 under 100 arpents,and even from 100to200; those 

 proportions between ihc stock and labor, and the 

 land, by which practical men will understand 

 what 1 mean, are on such farms unfavorable. The 

 manispoor; and no poor farmer can make those 

 exertions that are demanded for good husbandry;* 

 and his poverty is necessarily in proportion to the 

 smallness of Ins farm. The profit of a large farm 

 supports the farmer and his family, and leaves a 

 surplus which may be laid out in improvements; 

 that of a small tract of land will do no more than 

 support the farmer, and leaves nothing for im- 

 provements. With the latter the horses are more 

 numerous than with the former, and in a propor- 

 tion that abridges much of the profit. The divi- 

 sion of labor, which in every pursuit of industry 

 gives skill and despatch, cannot indeed take place 

 on the greatest farms in the degree in which it is 

 found in manufactures; but upon small farms it 

 does not take place at all: — the same man, by 

 turns, applies to every work of the farm; upon the 

 larger occupation there are ploughmen, thrashers, 

 hedgers, shepherds, cow-herds, ox-herns, hog- 

 herds, lime burners, drainers, and irrigators: — this 

 circumstance is of considerable importance, and 

 decides that every work will be belter performed 

 on a large than on a small farm; one of the greatest 

 engines of good husbandry, a sheepfold, is either 

 to be found on a large farm only, or at an expense 

 of labor which destroys the profit. It has often 

 been urged, that small farms are greater nurseries 

 of population, in many instances this is the case, 

 and they are often pernicious exactly in that pro- 

 porlion; prolific in misery; and breeding mouths 

 without yielding a produce to feed them. In 

 France, population: outstripping the demand, is a 

 public, nuisance, and ought to be carefully discour- 

 aged; but of this fact, gTarh% through the whole 

 kingdom, more in another chapter. The farms I 

 should prefer in France would be 250 to 350 acres 

 upon rich soils; and 400 to 600 upon poorer ones. 

 England has made, upon the whole, a much 

 greater progress in agriculture than any other 

 country in Europe; and great farms have abso- 

 lutely done the whole: insomuch, that we have 

 not a capital improvement that is ever found on a 

 small one. Let foreigners — let the Count de 

 Ilertzbergt come to England and view our hus- 



* "Wealth," says a French writer, "in the hand? of 

 farmers becomes fatal to agriculture." EssaisurV :iat 

 de la culture Belgique, Svo. 1784, p. 7. Who can won- 

 der at a kingdom being ill cultivated, that abounds with 

 such politicians? 



t That Minister says, in one of his discourses to the 

 Academy of Berlin, "Cest lc principe que le ctdtiva- 

 teur Anglois Young soutient, dans son Arirhmetique 

 Politique, sur l'utilite des grandes serines. M. Youn°- 

 pro fit avoir tort a Regard d'un gouvernement republ£ 

 cain tel que celuide la Grande Bretagne, qui a plus be- 

 soin qu'un autre d'une grande population." Here, as 

 in many instances, it is supposed, that large farms are 

 unfavorable to population, because their produce is 

 consumed in towns. Has the Count given any reason 

 to make us believe, that the produce of a large (arm 

 consumed in a town, does not imply a population pro- 

 portioned to ils quantity, as well as the produce of a 

 small farm, which is consumed by the people thai raise 

 it? As population is in proportion to food, those who 



