224 CHYMISTRY APPLIED TO AGRICULTURE. 



Agriculture has yet this advantage over manufactures, 

 that almost all its products are of the first necessity, and 

 that the changes of taste, and the caprices of fashion, have 

 not the same influence upon it, as upon the products of 

 manufacturing industry : a nation rich in its soil does not 

 experience those fluctuations to which a manufacturing 

 nation is exposed by the mere progress of foreign manu- 

 factures. 



In all these respects, the prosperity of France rests 

 upon solid bases ; its soil is adapted to all kinds of cul- 

 ture, and possesses several peculiar to itself; the excel- 

 lence and variety of its wines, in particular, find consum- 

 ers everywhere, and this branch of cultivation alone pro- 

 duces at the present day more than a thousand millions. 



We are not, then, to be surprised if France have always 

 risen, as by a miracle, from every crisis which she has ex 

 perienced, and may conclude, that if she had been wisely 

 governed, she would long since have stood first among 

 nations. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



OF LARGE AND SMALL ESTATES. 



The question as to large and small estates has for some 

 years occupied all minds in France. Some would unite 

 all property in the hands of a few families; others are 

 willing to leave it to time and private interest to effect a 

 suitable division, and one advantageous to the nation and 

 the government.* 



Large landed estates spring from the first institutions of 

 monarchy; privileges, grants, and the division of inhab- 

 itants into classes, centre all property in the hands of a 

 few ; the rest of the population, condemned to servitude, is 

 attached to the soil. 



Gradually the serfs are freed ; property is divided ; but 

 the new proprietors have been able to acquire and to 

 possess only on burdensome conditions ; their lands have 



* See the excellent Memoir of the Vicomte de Morel Vind6 on this 

 subject. 



