10 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



business. Of the remaining 8 million, which may he said to be 

 composed of the industrial and working classes, 3 million only 

 are inhabitants of the towns. That is, of the whole population, 

 two-fifths of the people in France live in the cities, and three- 

 fifths live in the country. This gives a very surprising result as 

 compared with England, where four-fifths of the whole people 

 live in town, and one-fifth only in the country. We have yet no 

 data with which I am acquainted to make a like comparison 

 with this country. 



All property is, then, very equally distributed among the bulk 

 of the population. There are six million of houses in France, 

 the greater part of them cottages with small plots of land. 

 Nearly the whole of this number are small freeholds belonging 

 to their occupants. In other words, more than two-thirds of the 

 entire population own their own houses. 



After hearing these statistics, the question, I have no doubt, 

 arises to the lips of each one of my auditors, as it came to me, — 

 how are these very great results possible ? What is the secret ? 

 This may be told in a word. It is the thorough cultivation of 

 the soil. Of her 132 million of acres, 61 million are arable ; 12 

 million only are in meadows, or, as we say, fields and grass ; 5 

 million in vineyards ; 1^ millions in orchards and gardens ; 2| 

 million in miscellaneous crops ; 20 million in wood and forest ; 

 a half-million in ponds ; 20 million only may be called heath or 

 waste lands, the remainder being for roads, public squares, 

 canals and pleasure grounds — about 7 million of acres. Thus 

 it will appear that two-thirds of the entire area of France are 

 under actual cultivation every year. 



But the question still recurs — how can this be possible ? The 

 answer is, it becomes possible because of the minute subdivision 

 of the land, the small freeholds into which all France is divided. 

 Before the revolution of 1792 the lands were holden largely by 

 the nobles and by the clergy, large })ortions being covered with 

 forest. These lands, of course, were cultivated by a tenantry, 

 and as the nobleman was exempted from the most oppressive 

 portion of the taxation, all exactions fell upon the land and upon 

 labor. But the French revolution changed all that. All the 

 lands of the Church and of the nobles were declared public 

 domain, and being made the basis of the currency, were sold out 

 in small parcels. Much of the forests were cut olf, the land put 



