SMALL HOLDINGS. 315 



kept, more produce reaped, more recruits for the army, 

 more taxes for the Crown, and (outside France) more increase 

 of the population. There is distinctly more production — 

 of food and otherwise. " In my recent tour along the front 

 through France," so remarked the Australian statesman 

 Mr. Hughes at the ]\Iansion House not long ago, " I did 

 not see as much land uncultivated as you may see within 

 ten miles of London. The French nation is rooted in the 

 soil of France : that is the secret of its great strength. 

 You must cultivate the lands of Britain ; create such con- 

 ditions as will induce men to follow agriculture." 



The difference in the matter of keeping more live stock 

 is particularly marked in Wiirttemberg, to the agricultural 

 institutions of which Mr. Jesse CoUings not undeservedly 

 some time ago called particular attention. A statistical 

 inquiry there made has shown that on very small properties 

 there the ratio of cows to land is as high as one cow to 

 four-ninths of an acre ; on larger properties, from 1,000 acres 

 upward, it is only as one cow to the traditional "three acres." 

 In Germany the comparison between agriculture in populous 

 and in sparsely peopled districts is made very easy by the 

 work, that has already proceeded very far, of home 

 colonisation, which has been going on, rather under State 

 direction than with pecuniary State help, in the eastern pro- 

 vinces of Prussia. New population has been settled on 

 whilom desert large estates. New villages have sprung up, 

 with church spires rising up above the cluster of neat tiled 

 roofs. The plain has become chequered with well-tilled 

 fields, like a patchwork quilt. And figures tell a tale of all- 

 round improvement. I have no space to go into particulars 

 here. I have given figures elsewhere.^ 



As already stated, with the settlement of these little 

 hosts of freeholders, with the growth of population, every- 

 thing else that makes for national prosperity has grown too. 

 And the men and women themselves have grown in char- 

 acter. They now have a fuller sense of citizenship, they 



^ See "A Practical Justification of Peasant Properties" in the 

 Contemporary Review of May, 1891, and " Repeopling the Land " in 

 the same print of May, 1895. 



