The Land and the Community. 147 



tinct heads; viz., that practised as a means of subsistence' and 

 that exercised as a trade. But in the French peasant both 

 instances occurred, for as proprietor he was self-supporting, 

 and as vine-dresser he was trading ; and Young has shown 

 that no single real instance was forthcoming in which the 

 one occurred without the other. In England, also, a multi- 

 tude of small holdings no doubt existed, of such a size that 

 their proprietors could combine both processes in the proper 

 proportions to each other. An average case would be where 

 an individual had to support a family of six persons on some 

 twelve acres of land, eight of which were arable and four 

 grass. The latter, with a little help from the former, would 

 maintain two cows : under a proper rotation of cropping, the 

 arable land is supposed to raise between two and three acres 

 of wheat, two of barley or oats, two of peas, and two of clover 

 annually. The man's wheat and the produce of his cows 

 would support him, his wife, and five children in bread, 

 butter, and milk ; the waste products of the dairy, his clover, 

 and oflfal corn would sustain some poultry and a sow ; and his 

 oats, clover, and part of his grass would keep two horses.^ As 

 a surplus, he would have the crop off two acres of peas, and 

 one of barley. Out of the annual produce of his sow he would 

 obtain eight pigs for market, and two for home consumption. 

 By these means he would be able to defray the wear and tear 

 of buildings, implements and clothing, and lay by annually 

 something towards a fund intended to meet casualties. The 

 balance would represent his trading stock. For the sake of 

 argument, let us suppose that this small area of land was 

 sufficient to support all these live-stock, bipeds and quadrupeds 

 included ; and that the climate and life was so health}- that 

 casualties involving doctors' and veterinary bills might reason- 

 ably be excluded from the reckoning ; — we have then to dis- 

 pose of the peasant-proprietor's grown-up children. The entire 



' Here occurs one of those numerous passages in the Political Essays 

 which cannot but cause a doubt as to their authorship. How could sucli 

 an expert as Young have imagined tliat twelve acres would either employ 

 or maintain two horses? This error, however, does not invalidate his 

 conclusions, and may be ignored hj the reader. 



