G18 
Small Holdings in France. 
After the proceedings, we all adjourned to the village caf^, 
where, in the course of conversation, I informed the company that 
neither mayor nor municipal council existed in English villages. 
I also informed them that, as proprietor of nearly all the land and 
houses in more than one parish, I had practically to perform a large 
part of the functions of mayor and council, and to provide all the 
funds for village improvements and sanitation. These remarks of 
mine created profound astonishment, but the audience recognised 
at once the difficulty we should encounter in England of constituting 
a village council, perhaps largely consisting of non-ratepaying 
labourers. 
In a recent number of the Economic Journal, Mr. F. Seebohm 
remarks, “There never was in France at any epoch a peasantry of 
labourers working for wages like that of England.” It is certainly 
the case that at Vraignes at the present day, three-fourths of the 
heads of families are of a class other than, and superior to, mere 
wage-earning labourers. 
The 62 families are made up of: — 11 cultivateurs, or com- 
plete farmers ; 20 menagers, half farmers, half labourers ; 15 
labourers (frequently owning house and garden-plot) ; 16 miscel- 
laneous (tradesmen, etc.). 
The extent of the territory of the commune of Vraignes is 565 
hectares, or nearly 1,400 acres. It is divided into three sols or 
courses, (1) autumn-sown corn, (2) spring-sown corn, (3) fallows, 
and each farmer is required to have his particular wheat, oats or 
fallow in the common sol. In point of value, the soil of France 
is divided into three classes. The rates and taxes on the first class 
amount at Vraignes (as I was informed) to 4f. 50c., or 3s. 9cf. 
per acre; on the second class to 3f. 50c., or 2s. 11c?. per acre; 
on the third class to 3f., or 2s. 6c?. per acre. 
Slightly more than half of the amount collected goes to the State 
as taxes ; a quarter to the department or county ; and the re- 
mainder to the commune. The rates are called centimes additionelles, 
and are levied pro rata to the ordinary taxation, but the amount is 
limited by law according to population. The amount of the rates 
varies according to the wealth of the commune. The commune of 
Vraignes is a very poor one, having no other communal property 
than a chalk pit. Poor-rate, however, is levied nowhere in France. 
The average rent of land is now about 20 francs, or 16s. per acre, 
its .selling value being about 16?. — both being reduced by about one- 
half in the last fifteen years. 
Where a farm-servant is boarded and lodged on the premises, 
his money wage averages Is. per day. Outside labourers get 2s. 
Harvesting is done by piece-work, 10s. an acre being paid for cutting 
and tying wheat and rye, and about half that sum for oats and 
barley. All corn crops are mown by hand, and all are sown by 
hand. Wheat is threshed out by steam, but oats are still knocked 
out by the primitive flail, of which I heard the old familiar sound 
in M. de Vismes’s barn. 
M. de Vismes’s yield of wheat per acre has averaged 20 bushels 
