230 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



the relative cost of 'title' to an acre is beyond all 

 comparison with that of a hundred, and of a hundred 

 in like manner with a thousand), you have secretly 

 clenched and fortified the process which entail and 

 primogeniture had openly avowed and established; 

 and rendered it impossible, on the common principles 

 of prudence or economy, for any one to buy land (ex- 

 cept for building) otherwise than in large, and in- 

 creasingly larger quantities. The tendency is not 

 stationary; it is still going on. The man of small 

 or moderate capital is becoming every day more and 

 more effectually ousted from the possibility of owner- 

 ship in " the earth/' which " was made for all." 



You point to France and Belgium, where an oppo- 

 site law compelling subdivision, with still more evil 

 tendency exists; and talk about 'political expedi- 

 ency,' and the mischief of ' morcellement.' But must 

 we rush into one extreme to avoid the other ? or is 

 our timid intelligence so scared that it cannot pause 

 to distinguish between a tyranny which enforces sub- 

 division, and that middle course which would allow 

 Land, like every other form of capital, to adapt itself 

 to human need and circumstance, and wholesomely 

 to exist in great and small proportions ? Or is our po- 

 litical philosophy of such a school as to allow the sup- 



