LARGE AND SMALL ESTATES. 225 



been loaded with rents and imposts from which the first 

 possessors were exempt, and thus two kinds of property are 

 established. 



While this state of things has continued, agriculture 

 has made no progress ; one class was too rich to perceive 

 the necessity of improving their estates, the other was too 

 poor to attempt it. 



When the power of acquiring property has been given to 

 all, and particularly when the law has equally protected 

 all proprietors, and abolished all privileges attached to the 

 soil, or to individuals, the result has been a division of 

 property, and an advance in agriculture. 



The revolution has had two results advantageous to 

 land-owners; the first, that of effacing the last traces of 

 inequality in property; the second, that of offering to the 

 agriculturist an enormous quantity of lands, which he 

 could purchase at a low price. 



The natural consequence of this state of things has 

 been to increase the number of landed proprietors, and 

 the respectability of the farmer. 



Is the division of the soil into small estates an advan- 

 tage or an evil ? That is the question which we are to 

 examine. 



Large estates have the advantage of affording scope for 

 all the developements of agricultural industry. That 

 which forms the basis of subsistence, and a large propor- 

 tion of the raw material of manufactures, is here united 

 in one grand scene of operation. The productions of a 

 large domain not only suffice for the subsistence and sup- 

 port of the proprietor and his agents, but the surplus sup- 

 plies the wants of all, and fills the public markets. 



Add to this, that large proprietors are more enlightened 

 than small ones, and, especially, better enabled, by their 

 more ample fortunes, to attempt improvements. 



There is, then, no doubt that large proprietors are de- 

 sirable in France ; but are we therefore to be alarmed at 

 the increase of small farms ? I think not. 



If, as I have already said, large estates have been the 

 necessary result of our ancient institutions, the division 

 of landed property is the natural effect of those by which 

 we are at present governed. The suppression of the right 

 of primogeniture, and of all the burdens which weighed 

 unequally upon difierent classes of proprietors, and the 

 prosperity which has prevailed among the inhabitants of 



