Riiral Economy of France since 1789, 
529 
behind tliem everything of the kind which had preceded them. 
78,125 miles of new roads were opened, numerous canals con- 
structed, river-courses deepened and improved, harbours con- 
structed or enlarged, 5625 miles of railway were opened, and 
4000 more in course of construction. Owing to the constant 
progress in the means of communication, intercourses hitherto 
unknown have sprung up, the conditions of labour have been 
completely altered, production has attained a power which seems 
to baffle all obstacles ; revolutions, wars, famines, epidemics, all 
these scourges, formerly so deadly, may now stay its progress, 
but can no longer stop its power, nor suspend its activity." 
M. de Lavergne naturally divides this period into two distinct 
parts ; the one extending from 1815 to 1847, the other running 
from 1848 up to the present time. 
Any one who has watched the movement of this country 
with the slightest attention must admit that, though checks and 
interruptions may arise, permanent retrogression is now impos- 
sible, so powerful are the means now at the command of the 
community, and so general the enlightenment necessary to direct 
the use and application of these means. Yet, on a comparison 
between these two periods, the progress of agriculture will 
appear to have been most rapid during the former, although in 
the latter greater efforts at direct encouragement have been 
officially directed to the promotion of agriculture. This anomaly 
can be accounted for by a reference to several causes : some 
natural — such as the potato muiTain, and especially the vine- 
disease, and the failures in the harvests of 1846, 1853, and 
1855; others social or political. The concentration of labour in 
Paris and other large cities, caused by the gigantic buildings 
and other works carried on at the public expense, have con- 
tributed to withdraw from the agricultural interest both labour 
and capital. French agriculture has also to lament another 
scourge — the disease of silkworms — which has reduced by 
three-fourths the production of silk in the southern provinces. 
The subdivision of property has also greatly increased of late — 
an evil by no means mitigated, as M. de Lavergne is inclined to 
believe, by the fact that each portion has increased in value, so 
that land-proprietors, although the owners of a smaller portion 
of land, are as rich, on the average, as they were before 1789, 
for the value of almost everything else around them has also 
increased in the same ratio. 
It is scarcely possible to give anything like an accurate 
estimate of the distribution of land property before the great 
Revolution of 1789. All we know is that the Church owned 
about one-sixth of the territory, the State and the parishes another 
