166 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



estates an amount of resources and speculative boldness, 

 which to the same extent is rarely found among the 

 others ; as witness one example among a thousand. Mr 

 Marshall, the son of a rich Leeds manufacturer, pur- 

 chased, some years ago, 1000 acres of land, at Patrington, 

 near the mouth of the Humber, in the East Eiding of 

 Yorkshire. The enormous expense to which he went in 

 rebuilding offices, erecting steam-engines, draining, liming, 

 &c., is well known throughout England. 



Such things take place in France every day, but, no 

 doubt, of a less striking character, because industrial pur- 

 suits are less productive, though the features and cir- 

 cumstances are the same. "What fortunes have been made 

 during the last fifty years on the lands about Paris, and 

 other towns of France ! What large indemnities have 

 already been paid for railways, canals, mines, manufac- 

 tories ! What doubling of rents, caused by the opening 

 of new means of communication, or the development of 

 neighbouring large hives of industry ! Finally, what 

 quantities of land every day pass from insolvent and 

 poor hands into wealthy ones ! It is the natural progres- 

 sive movement of society, a movement which is acceler- 

 ated when not hindered by any political catastrophe. 



Keduced to these limits, the agricultural question is 

 nothing more than one of general prosperity. If French 

 society, retarded by all the obstacles which itself origin- 

 ated, could ever have fifty years before it such as those 

 which have elapsed from 1815 and 1848, it would no 

 doubt regain in agriculture, as in everything else, the 

 distance which separates it from its rival. The greatest 

 difficulties are passed. We, as well as the English, make 

 use of those powerful means which nowadays increase 

 the power of labour, and which, applied to almost a new 



