114 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



important class in the State ; they were called yeomen, 

 to distinguish them from the landed gentry, who were 

 called squires. These yeomen have almost disappeared, 

 but not by any violent revolution. The change has taken 

 place voluntarily and imperceptibly. They have sold 

 their small properties to become farmers, because they 

 found it more profitable ; and as most of them have 

 succeeded, those remaining will most likely shortly follow 

 the example. 



Why do not many of our small proprietors do the 

 same ? it is because they do not see their immediate ad- 

 vantage in it. The English yeomen, too, were a long 

 time in making up their minds to the change. It re- 

 quires favourable circumstances, which are not yet very 

 generally apparent ; and something more than the wish is 

 needed in order to bring about agricultural revolutions. 

 Likewise it is not so much the extension of the lease 

 system, properly so called, as the want of capital to lay 

 out on the land that is wanted. The superior advan- 

 tage of the lease is apparent only where proprietors who 

 farm with their own hands have not a sufficient capital. 

 Where farming is the profession of proprietors who have 

 all the requisites, the effect they produce is quite as bene- 

 ficial as in the case of farmers. Proprietors have a direct, 

 permanent, and hereditary interest in the improvement 

 of the land, only they require a double capital, which 

 is not often to be met with ; first, a capital as proprie- 

 tors; and, secondly, another as cultivators. When there 

 is this twofold condition, added to inherited experience, 

 and that energy which is stimulated by a family name, 

 there is no mode of farming which can compete with 

 it, while there is no more desirable and better stamp 

 of men for a State than these ; and this is not to be 

 overlooked. 



