APPENDIX. 465 



comforts, but are, on the contrary, very poor, and particu- 

 larly subject to scarcities. With respect to this latter evil, 

 indeed, it is quite obvious that a peasantry which depends 

 principally on its possessions in land, must be more exposed 

 to it than one which depends on the general wages of la- 

 bour. When a year of deficient crops occurs in a country 

 of any extent and diversity of soil, it is always partial, and 

 some districts are more affected than others. But when a 

 bad crop of grass, corn, or potatoes, or a mortality among 

 cattle, falls on a poor man, whose principal dependence is 

 on two or three acres of land, he is in the most deplorable 

 and helpless situation. He is comparatively without money 

 to purchase supplies, and is not for a moment to be com- 

 pared with the man who depends on the wages of labour, 

 and w ho w ill, of course, be able to purchase that portion of 

 the general crop, whatever it may be, to which his relative 

 situation in the society entitles him. In Sweden, where the 

 farmers' labourers are paid principally in land, and often 

 keep two or three cows, it is not uncommon for the pea- 

 sants of one district to be almost starving, while their neigh- 

 bours at a little distance are living in comparative plenty. 

 It will be found indeed generally, that, in almost all the 

 countries which are particularly subject to scarcities and 

 famines, either the farms are very small, or the labourers are 

 paid principally in land. China, Indostan, and the former 

 «tate of the Highlands of Scotland, furnish some proofs 

 among many others of the truth of this observation ; and 

 in reference to the small properties of France, Mr. Young 

 himself, in his Tour, particularly notices the distress arising 

 from the least failure of the crops; and observes, that such 

 a deficiency, as in England passes almost without notice, in 

 France is attended with dreadful calamities.* 



Should any plan, therefore, of assisting the poor by land 

 be adopted in this country, it would be absolutely essential 

 to its ultimate success, to prevent them from making it their 

 principal dependence. And this might probably be done 

 by attending strictly to the two following rules. Not to 

 let the division of land be so great as to interrupt the cot- 

 tager essentially in his usual labours ; and always to stop in 

 the further distribution of land and cottages, when the price 



• Travels in France, vol. i. c. xii. p. 409. That country will probably be 

 the least liable to scarcities, in which agriculture is carried on as the most flou- 

 rishing manufacture of tlic stale. 



VOL. TI. II H 



