354 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



be a villager must necessarily have his archimedean standing 

 ground, his ttov arSy. 



That consideration, as a matter of course, brings the point 

 of ownership to the front. The Small Holdings question 

 is, as observed, above all things a social question, a question 

 of creating homes. Now there can be no doubt about it 

 that ownership makes the best homes — homes that families 

 become attached to, homes in which the man who plants 

 knows that he will of a certainty also reap, on which accord- 

 ingly he is likely to bestow most pains, constant attention, 

 loving care. " Socially," remarks Mr. Prothero, " the 

 advantages of a class of peasant-owners are [indisputably 

 great." And he says elsewhere : " It is only by ownership 

 that the atmosphere can be recreated in which the peasant- 

 owner becomes part of the land and the land part of him. 

 The opportunity of buying a freehold cottage and garden 

 appeals to every man." And he adds : "On economic 

 lines, such as these, village life might in time be reconstructed, 

 and intellectually placed on a higher level than the old." 

 Read Henri Baudrillart's charming chapters about the 

 French peasant's little owned farm in all different parts 

 of the country and compare what he writes with what you 

 can see on a personal visit, when you will find it fully con- 

 firmed. It has been said that to the owning small holder his 

 holding is a workshop, a home, and a sure savings bank. To 

 the tenant it is only a workshop. The house is his to-day ; 

 it may be another man's to-morrow. The savings bank 

 contained in the holding goes with the home. Another 

 man may reap what the present man has sown. To the 

 owner it is the three things in one, and more besides. It 

 is, according to Baudrillart's showing, an object of affection 

 and devotion to him, like a " sweetheart," upon which he 

 will readily lavish pains and labour without reckoning the 

 cost. See those little plots high up on the rocks, of which 

 Arthur Young showed himself so much enamoured — see 

 them up on the projecting points of rocks rising up almost 

 perpendicularly in the mountains of Languedoc, Provence and 

 the Dauphine, where they strike the eye as a most character- 

 istic feature. One wonders how people could manage to get 



