416 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



in like manner, contemporaneously with the subdivision of farms, 

 and the more minute cultivation of the soil, there is also a 

 counter-process of enlargement of little farms, and in some 

 places even a development of la grande culture on a splendid 

 scale. But let us inquire first, what are the causes, economic and 

 legal, of the continual subdivision by purchase of the soil in 

 France ? The reader will bear in mind with respect to it that it 

 is by no means a mere subdivision of existing peasant properties ; 

 that small properties are gaining ground in the literal sense, and 

 increasing the breadth of their total territory as well as their total 

 number. And the continuous acquisitions of land by purchase on 

 the part of the French peasantry and labouring classes can be 

 palpably shown to be a perfectly natural and beneficial movement ; 

 one proceeding, in the first place, from the natural tendencies of 

 rural economy, from the mutual interest of buyers and sellers, 

 from the growing prosperity and development of France, as its 

 agriculture improves, as it is opened up by railways, roads, inter- 

 nal and foreign trade, manufactures, and mines, and as both coun- 

 try and town become wealthier ; proceeding again, in the second 

 place, from, or at least promoted by, a sound and natural legal 

 system ; facilitating dealings with land as the interests, inclinations, 

 happiness in a word, the good of the community direct. 



One obvious consideration presents itself foremost, though too 

 much stress must not be laid on it, that France has aptitudes of 

 soil and climate for several kinds of agricultural produce the 

 vine, for example for which la petite culture, in the form of 

 manual cultivation (a form to which we shall see hereafter that 

 la petite culture is by no means confined), is almost exclusively 

 appropriate. Too much stress must not be laid on this fact, as 

 just said, for the amount of cultivated territory under such kinds 

 of produce does not amount to one-fifteenth of the whole ; but it 

 is a fact worth mentioning, on one hand as an indication, so far 

 as it goes, of the chimerical nature of notions prevalent in 

 England, even among excellent farmers, of the ruinous conse- 

 quences to agriculture of the subdivision of the French soil, and 

 on another hand as presenting a particular example of a general 

 fact of immense importance in the inquiry namely, that the 



