230 C'HYMISTRY APPLIED TO AGRICULTURE. 



ed property is an advantage to agriculture, to the state, t^ 

 public morals. 



Men who take their opinion only from the past, would 

 bring back property to its former state ; but times are not 

 the same, and a return to the ancient order of things is 

 impossible. The division of property will continue to take 

 place, so long as the small proprietor shall obtain more 

 produce from a given extent of land than the large one, 

 and so long as large owners shall divide their lands into 

 small lots, to obtain a more advantageous sale of them; 

 it is evident that a different result could be obtained only 

 by reducing the destitute laborer to a degree of misery 

 which would not permit him to economize with a view to 

 acquiring property, or by prohibiting sales of land in small 

 portions ; now, the first of these means is contrary to jus- 

 tice and good morals, and the second to the rights of prop- 

 erty. 



When, in the session of 1825, the government proposed 

 to reestablish the right of primogeniture, it had neither 

 paid regard to the changes which had taken place since 

 the revolution,, nor to the respective rights of the different 

 members of the same family. Formerly, almost all the 

 large estates belonged to the most ancient families in the 

 kingdom ; they passed, undivided, into the hands of the 

 eldest son, because the army, the clergy, or the order of 

 Malta afforded rich endowments for younger sons, and con- 

 vents offered great resources for daughters ; but, at the 

 present day, what would become of younger sons if the 

 right of primogeniture were reestablished? Deprived of 

 the expedients offered by the old state of things, incapable 

 of laboring upon the soil, they would live at the mercy of 

 the head of their family. It is then particularly to old 

 families, which, notwithstanding, it is meant to benefit, 

 that the reestablishment of the right of primogeniture 

 would be fatal. 



Let us but leave it to time and to private interest, and the 

 division of property will not pass the bounds prescribed to it 

 by these supreme regulators of all things. 



The division of estates will continue to take place, 1. in 

 the vicinity of cities, where, from the constant attention 

 bestowed on the soil, from the abundance of manure, the 

 facility of transportation, the proximity of the market, and 

 the certainty of a safe and advantageous sale, immense 

 crops of vegetables and fruits of all kinds and of every 



