CHAP. IV.] EVERY MAN HIS OWN TENANT. 59 



equality in the distribution both of real and personal property ; 

 but this is doubtless in no small degree connected with the more 

 moderate size of the fortunes there. The ideas entertained in 

 some of these ruder parts of the country, of the extreme destitu 

 tion of the younger children of aristocratic families in Great 

 Britain, are often most mistaken and absurd ; though particular 

 instances in Scotland, springing out of the old system of entails, 

 may have naturally given rise to erroneous generalizations. It 

 was evident to me that few, if any, of these critics, had ever re 

 garded primogeniture as an integral portion of a great political 

 system, wholly different from their own, the merits of which can 

 not fairly be tried by a republican standard. 



Both in New England and in the State of New York, I heard 

 many complaints of the inadequacy of the capital belonging to 

 small landed proprietors to make their acres yield the greatest 

 amount of produce with the least expenditure of means. They 

 are often so crippled with debt and mortgages, paying high in 

 terest, that they can not introduce many improvements in agri 

 culture, of which they are by no means ignorant. Nevertheless, 

 the farmers here constitute a body of resident yeomen, industrious 

 and intelligent ; absenteeism being almost unknown, owing to the 

 great difficulty of letting farms, and the owners being spread 

 equally over the whole country, to look after the roads and 

 village-schools, and to see that there is a post-office even in each 

 remote mountain hamlet. The pride and satisfaction felt by men 

 who till the land which is their own, is, moreover, no small ad 

 vantage, although one which a political economist, treating solely 

 of the production of wealth, may regard as lying out of his prov- 

 vince. As a make-weight, however, in our estimate of the amount 

 of national happiness derived from landed property, it is not to be 

 despised; and where &quot;every man is his own tenant,&quot; as at Con- 

 way, the evils of short leases, of ejectments on political grounds, 

 or disputes about poaching and crimes connected with the game- 

 laws are unknown. 



After passing Conway, we had fairly entered the mountains 

 of New Hampshire, and enjoyed some rambles over the hills, 

 delighted with the gound of rushing torrents and the wildness of 



