Small Holdings in France. 
623 
number of acres farmed should also be taken into account. His 
decision (opposed to M. de Vismes’s desire) was to the effect that 
the land, as well as sheep, was to be included in the calculation, 
which is made as follows : 
Of the total of four months of nights from July 1 to November 1 , 
viz. 122, one half, or 61, are allotted to the total of acres, viz. 414, 
farmed by the contributories ; and 6 1 to the total of sheep, viz. 1 98. 
Thus one night’s folding is assigned to every 6| acres, and to every 
sheep, giving to M. de Vismes, who contributes 99 acres and 
36 sheep, a total of 25 nights, with which he heads the list. 
Our acquaintance, M. Laflandre, of the dilapidated cottage, is at 
the bottom with 12 acres and 10 sheep, yielding him five nights. 
The further knotty question of the season, whether to be of 
short summer or longer autumn nights, is determined by lot. 
La Herte is probably as old an institution as La Vaine Future, 
so much insisted on by Mr. Seebohm as evidence of the former 
prevalence of the common field system of agriculture in France. 
Before closing this paper, I will ask the reader to glance with 
me for a moment at the commune of Talmas, some ten miles to the 
north of Amiens and thirty miles distant from Vraignes. Talmas, to 
all appearance, is a paradise of small holders. As at Vraignes, 
labourers’ cottages are rare ; but the number of farm buildings, 
yards, orchards, and small paddocks (well fenced round and shaded 
by trees) seems almost infinite. Talmas is about five times the size 
of Vraignes, which it resembles in its main features, with the 
exception of its network of small paddocks, in addition to its 
orchards. Its highways and byways in the late afternoon of a sunny 
day in May, when I visited Talmas, swarmed with cows and heifers, 
mostly conducted in pairs, a rope in each hand, by very old or very 
young people. 
But, in spite of its ideal surroundings and conveniences for 
small holdings, the population of Talmas has fallen in the last six 
years from 1,113 to 913. This diminution is partly to be accounted 
for by the attractions of a factory lately started in a neighbouring 
commune. But the migration from the country to the towns is 
unfortunately on the increase in Picardy, as in the rest of France, 
in spite of small holdings. 
It will be gathered from the above description of Small Holdings 
in Picardy that the peasants are by no means invariably proprietors 
of the entirety of their holdings. It seems commonly to be the 
case that the acres which the peasant inherits or purchases appear to 
be a sort of nest-egg, attracting other acres which he hires. 
It is hardly possible to exaggerate the inconvenience of the fact 
that hardly any two parcelles, belonging to the same owner, are con- 
tiguous. This was the case with Homer Dersent of Talmas, whom 
I found ploughing in manure on one of his half-acre parcelles. He 
could hardly point me out another within sight which belonged to 
him. He informed me that he owned ten of his acres, and hired 
the remainder of five or six different landlords. He also hired his 
house buildings and orchard at the very low rent of 4^. In Picardy 
