220 LAND REFORM 



in addition to that of his own family. There is no 

 mystery about this great yield of produce. It has 

 ever been the result, both in ancient and modern 

 times, of that intensive cultivation and heavy manuring 

 of the land almost invariably found in connection with 

 small farming and peasant proprietary.^ 



The men of this colony, with their own horses and 

 carts, draw manure from the towns, and the quantity 

 they place on their land is enormous. In a single year, 

 it is stated, above 500 tons were placed on the 43 acres 

 of allotments referred to (the Horse Course), and far 

 more in proportion on a six-acre holding on the 

 Woodrow Farm. 



There is another feature connected with occupying 

 ownership which the political economist does not 

 reckon because it has no money value. Every man's 

 happiness in life depends largely on the interest and 

 pleasure he takes in his occupation. Nothing can 

 exceed the satisfaction a peasant proprietor gets from 

 his work. It is a pleasure to him to toil heavily in 

 order to make his holding — his own homestead — a 

 success. 



It is evident that the 5 per cent duty which Mr. 

 Chamberlain proposes to levy on the imports of 



^ " C. Furius Chrisimus, a freedman, gathered from a very small 

 farm far larger harvests than his neighbours reaped off large estates, and 

 so became an object of great ill-will, on the ground that he was attracting 

 their crops on to his land by witchcraft. Whereupon he was cited for 

 trial before the Curule Aedile. When the time came for him to come up 

 for sentence, he brought his rustic implements into the Forum, leading in 

 with them his strong, healthy household, well cared for and clad, his 

 iron work excellently made, etc. Then he said : ' My sorceries, Romans, 

 are these, and yet I cannot display before you or bring into the Forum 

 my early watchings, vigils, and the sweat of my brow.' Whereupon he 

 was acquitted. For of a truth, cultivation depends on the amount of 

 work put into it."— Pliny, "Natural History," Book XVIII, Chap, vn, 

 VIII. 



