98 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



in part what the law of succession destroys. In England, 

 if real property is not divided, movable is ; and in a 

 country where personal property is so considerable, this 

 division cannot fail, through sales and purchases, to ex- 

 ercise an influence upon the partition of fixed property. 

 The more rapid increase of population with our neigh- 

 bours, is, in its turn, another element which distributes 

 property. In fact, properties are being constantly di- 

 vided in England, and every day new country residences 

 are constructed for new country gentlemen ; at the same 

 time, many properties are being reconstituted in France, 

 and the assessment returns show that the increase in the 

 number of the large is greater than that of the small. 



Just as concentration of property in England is very 

 much overrated, so the influence which large property 

 exercises over agriculture is also exaggerated. This in- 

 fluence bears a relative proportion to the actual con- 

 centration, but both have their limits ; large property 

 does not always make large farming. The largest pro- 

 perties may be subdivided into small farms. It is of little 

 consequence whether ten thousand hectares are in the 

 possession of one man, if, for example, he divides them 

 into two hundred farms of fifty hectares each. We shall 

 presently see, in treating of farming properly so called, 

 that this is in fact commonly the case ; the influence of 

 large property is therefore nearly null. Let us admit, 

 however, that upon the whole, large properties are favour- 

 able to large farming, and that on this account it has 

 a direct influence upon a portion of the English soil ; is 

 this action as beneficial as some legislators believe ? and 

 are all other systems as injurious as they affirm \ That 

 is the question. 



In the United Kingdom we have seen that, in a certain 

 sense, there are two descriptions of properties the large 



