442 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



whilst the Teuton thinks more of the requirements of the soil 

 and of good cultivation. Nowhere to my knowledge does the Celt 

 show himself a cultivator of the first order ; it is to the German, 

 the Fleming, the Englishman, that agriculture is indebted for its 

 greatest improvements. The Celt has in several counties sub- 

 divided the soil for the sake of his family, without regard to 

 the requirements of national husbandry. Throughout Germany ^ 

 law and custom alike have always been opposed to the division 

 of farms. In Upper Bavaria this is carried so far that almost all 

 the land is in the hands of wealthy peasants, keeping up a kind 

 of entail by always bequeathing the whole of their property to 

 one of their children, a small pittance being given to the others. 

 But supposing the Irishman to become the absolute owner of his 

 farm, would he learn and comply with the requirements of the 

 land ? A Flemish farmer's son always wants to have a good farm 

 of his own ; he would not put up with a hovel improvised on a 

 potato field. Could the Irishman but be brought to practise agri- 

 culture as an art, and not as a mere means of bringing a subsist- 

 ence from the soil, he would soon abandon the miserable system 

 of subdivision which he has adhered to so long. But how is 

 this taste for agriculture as an art to be imparted to him ? To 

 extinguish the influence of instincts or tendencies, whether in- 

 herent in the race or the historical product of centuries, would it 

 suffice to introduce an agrarian constitution in Ireland similar 

 to that of Flanders, or, better still, that of Switzerland .? These 

 are questions which I confess myself not in a position to answer ; 

 but they are questions which those who have the Irish land 

 question to solve ought to face, when considering the land system 

 of Flanders. 



I think it useful to subjoin a tabulated statement (see table on 

 the following page), giving an idea of the number of farms {ex- 

 ploitations) and their relative sizes. These results date as far back 

 as 1 846, no returns having been published since. 



It has often been asserted that the peasant properties of 

 Flanders are burdened with debts, and that loans on them are 

 raised at ruinous rates of interest. 



1 See W. Roscher, Nationalokonomik des Ackerbaues, p. 229. 



