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CHAPTER VII. 



CONSTITUTION OF PKOPEBTY. 



THE superiority of English agriculture is pretty gener- 

 ally attributed to large property ; this opinion is true in 

 certain respects, but too much importance must not be 

 attached to it. 



In the first place, property in England is not so much 

 concentrated as is commonly imagined. There are no doubt 

 in that country immense territorial fortunes ; but these 

 fortunes, although they strike the attention of a foreigner, 

 and even of the natives themselves, are not the only ones. 

 In addition to the immense possessions of the nobility, 

 properly so called, are the more modest domains of the 

 gentry. On the 19th Feb. 1850, Mr Disraeli stated, 

 without contradiction, in the House of Commons, that in 

 the three kingdoms it was reckoned that there were 

 250,000 landed proprietors ; now, as the whole extent of 

 the cultivated land is twenty millions of hectares, this 

 gives an average of eighty hectares to each family, and, 

 including the uncultivated land, it gives one hundred and 

 twenty to each. The same orator, in estimating, as we 

 do in France, the net revenue of the landed proprietary 

 at sixty millions sterling, found that these 250,000 

 divisions gave an average rental of 240, or equal to 

 190 in reduced value. 



Like all averages, it is true that this gives but an 



