192 HENRY HILL GOODELL 



the family. Every man is at the same time a land-owner, a 

 capitalist and a laborer. To this "diffusion of property," 

 and to the universal thrift and industry naturally following 

 such diffusion, I attribute the general prosperity of the 

 people. It is natural that a man owning his little piece of 

 land should improve it to the utmost, and make it yield the 

 largest income possible. The man occupying temporarily 

 another's land will not lay out upon it any more than he can 

 possibly help. There results, then, from these small hold- 

 ings, an intense cultivation not possible on large estates. 



How different the case is in England may be seen from 

 the following figures : of the 36,000,000 acres comprising 

 England and Wales, 4,500 persons own 20,000,000; 288 

 hold over 5,000,000; 52 hold over 9,000 acres apiece; 204 

 hold over 5,000 and 2,432 hold over 1,000. More than one- 

 half is owned by private individuals, holding 1,000 acres 

 and upward. In Scotland this aggregation of land by the 

 few is still more striking. Of its 19,000,000 acres, nine- 

 tenths are held by less than 1,700 persons, and one-half of 

 the whole of its area is held by 70 persons. The whole num- 

 ber of land-owners is 131,530, but of these 111,658 own 

 less than an acre apiece. The largest estate is held by the 

 Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, and amounts to 1,326,- 

 000 acres. With such a distribution of property, and with a 

 poor law costing thirty-five million dollars annually, what 

 outlook is there for the English farmer? What hope of ever 

 acquiring possession of the little plot of land on which he 

 works and spends his days, or what motive to induce him to 

 improve property he cannot leave to his children? A recent 

 writer puts it in an nutshell when he says: "In England 



