French AgricuUnre and Stale Es-tahlisJiments. 



203 



obliged to take tlie part of instigator and chief agent in tlie career 

 of improvement. 



In comparison with the Enghsh system of ench)sures, France 

 may be called one vast open field. You may travel from Calais 

 to Paris, from Paris to the German frontier, to the Alps, to the 

 Pyrenees, and scarcely see a hedge or a partition-fence of any sort. 

 This vast open field (unlike the open districts of England, where 

 the operations of farming are generally conducted on the largest 

 scale) is cut up into the smallest conceivable plots of every variety 

 of produce. As far as the eye can reach, over vast plains Ijounded 

 by sloping hills, you see the surface varied by every description 

 of crop ; none perhaps above an acre or tw^o in size, the larger 

 portion not more than the fourth or the eighth of an acre. Here 

 a vineyard 100 yards by 20, there a strip of wheat, lucerne, bar- 

 ley, oats, potatoes, clover, vetches. Few roads intersect this ex- 

 tensive garden, which from the nature of the cultivation must be 

 traversed every day in all directions by the proprietors and culti- 

 vators of the various lots. The owner of a plot of lucerne, half 

 a mile from the high road, must pass one neighbour's vineyard, 

 another's wheat, and fifty such varieties, to reach his own plot, 

 where he must cut his lucerne, make it into hay, and carry it 

 home, either on his own back, or piled on an ass or horse, along 

 the narrow paths which intersect the plots. The residences of 

 these proprietors are almost invariably congregated into \illages or 

 towns, and lie therefore, for the most part, quite wide of their re- 

 spective allotments. 



Upon English principles of farming and of rural economy it is 

 difficult to imagine how such a system of cultivation can be carried 

 on successfully and profitably for a series of years. How is ma- 

 nure to be made ? how are cattle, the great agents in reproduc- 

 tion, to be kept, and restoration to be made to the land? It is 

 clear that over this vast open field, thus laid out, no cattle can de- 

 pasture, and, though a certain amount of stock may be kept in 

 stables, the amount must be limited from the want of winter food, 

 as few or no turnips are seen, and the transport of manure to the 

 distant plots from the want of roads and tracks must be operose 

 and expensive. 



Such is the condition of a large portion of the surface of France. 

 There are extensive tracts of forest, of pasture, of vineyard, and 

 in some parts of corn lands, which have not been subjected to this 

 process of division, but the desire to possess an interest in the 

 land, however small, is a ruling passion among the population of 

 France, and the principle of division is proceeding in its unchecked 

 career. What results will follow from this hitherto unproved ex- 

 periment occupies, as may be well supposed, no small share of 

 public attention in France. The comparative advantages of large 

 and small properties have been discussed under all their aspects. 



