CONSTITUTION OF PROPEKTY. 99 



and the middle sized. The large do not occupy more 

 than a third of the land, and a portion of that third being 

 divided into small farms, it follows that the action of 

 large properties is not felt, except to the extent of about 

 a fourth. Is this fourth the best cultivated ? I do not 

 believe it. The immense properties of the English aris- 

 tocracy are principally found in the less fertile regions. 

 The Duke of Sutherland, who is the largest proprietor in 

 Great Britain, possesses in one compact estate nearly 

 750,000 acres in the north of Scotland ; but these lands 

 are worth only 30s. per acre. Another nobleman the 

 Marquess of Breadalbane possesses in another part of 

 the same country almost as much of a similar value. In 

 England the extensive properties of the Duke of North- 

 umberland are situated, for the most part, in the county 

 of that name, one of the most mountainous and least 

 productive ; those of the Duke of Devonshire, in Derby- 

 shire, and so on. It is especially in such lands that large 

 properties should be ; there only can they produce good 

 effects. 



The richest parts of the British soil the counties of 

 Lancaster, Leicester, Worcester, Warwick, and Lincoln 

 are composed of large and middling sized properties. In 

 Lancashire, one of the richest of all, even in an agricul- 

 tural point of view, middling and almost small proper- 

 ties predominate. Upon the whole, it may be asserted, 

 especially if Ireland is not included, that the best culti- 

 vated land in the three kingdoms is not that which be- 

 longs to the great proprietors. There are, doubtless, strik- 

 ing exceptions ; but such is the rule, generally speaking. 



We find also, not exactly in England, but in an 

 English possession the island of Jersey and its depen- 

 dencies a country wholly composed of small proprietary. 

 The Norman laws of succession, which provide for an 



