OF AGRICULTURE. 167 



acre, or 1,300 inhabitants to the square mile, 

 and there is not one writer on agriculture who, 

 after having paid a visit to this island, did not 

 praise the well-being of the Jersey peasants 

 and the admirable results which they obtain in 

 their small farms of from five to twenty acres 

 very often less than five acres by means of a 

 rational and intensive culture. 



Most of my readers will probably be aston- 

 ished to learn that the soil of Jersey, which 

 consists of decomposed granite, with no organic 

 matter in it, is not at all of astonishing fer- 

 tility, and that its climate, though more sunny 

 than the climate of these isles, offers many 

 drawbacks on account of the small amount of 

 sun-heat during the summer and of the cold 

 winds in spring. But so it is in reality, and 

 at the beginning of the nineteenth century the 

 inhabitants of Jersey lived chiefly on imported 

 food. (See Appendix L.) The successes ac- 

 complished lately in Jersey are entirely due to 

 the amount of labour which a dense population 

 is putting in the land ; to a system of land- 

 tenure, land-transference and inheritance very 

 different from those which prevail elsewhere ; 

 to freedom from State taxation ; and to the 

 fact that communal institutions have been 

 maintained, down to quite a recent period, while 

 a number of communal habits and customs 



