100 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



equal division of lands among the children, continue there 

 in full force. " The inevitable effect of this law," says 

 David Low, "acting for the last nine hundred years 

 within the narrow limits of this small island, has been to 

 reduce the whole land into small holdings. There is 

 scarcely to be found in the whole island a single property 

 of forty acres ; many vary from five to fifteen, and most 

 of them are less than fifteen." Is the agriculture there 

 poorer? Certainly not. The land so divided is culti- 

 vated like a garden. It is farmed on an average at from 

 4 to 5 per acre, and in the environs of St Heliers as 

 high as 8 to 12. In spite of these enormous rents, 

 the farmers live in a state of comparative comfort upon 

 an exten t of ground which, elsewhere, would not suffice to 

 maintain the poorest labourer. 



In France, also, there are two descriptions of properties 

 the middle-sized and the small. It is generally found 

 that farming is farther advanced where the small pre- 

 dominates. Such are the departments of the Nord and 

 the Bas Rhin, and almost all the rich districts of the 

 other departments. It is under this subdivision of pro- 

 perty that most progress manifests itself with us. It is 

 a feature in the national character. The same fact is 

 observed in other countries in Belgium, in Ehenish 

 Germany, in Northern Italy, and even in Norway. 



Everywhere else, except in England that is to say, 

 in Spain, in Germany very large properties have done 

 more harm than good to agriculture. The feudal lord 

 lives far from his domains ; he knows them only by the 

 revenue he draws, and which, before it reaches his hands, 

 passes through a host of servants and stewards, more 

 alive to their own than to their master's interests. The 

 land, impoverished by greedy hands, never receiving that 

 care which would restore and increase its fertility, aban- 



