14 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
vaster, and so the natural desire for large possessions has 
been strengthened by habit and education ; or whether, hav¬ 
ing spiung from the dependent landless classes of English 
people—there are but these two classes in Great Britain— 
successive generations of craving what in the old world could 
not be had, but is so easily acquired here, have intensified 
that desire, w 7 e need not stop to discuss. The fact that, in this 
mania for much land, regardless of our condition cr capa¬ 
bilities, we prove our lineage is beyond question. In fact 
there seems to be no voluntary limit in this direction.' We 
have seen many li large farmers,” but we have never seen one 
whose ambition for land was wholly satisfied. Eor have w T e 
often seen an American farmer whose land3 were cultivated 
up to the full measure of economy. 
The Germans, Belgians, French and other continental peo¬ 
ple who have come among us show a different habit and a 
different ambition. Indeed, the systems of forming (if any¬ 
thing we have can be called a system) practiced by the Amer¬ 
ican and the continental farmer are, in most respects diametri¬ 
cally opposite. And the difference rests on this fundamental dif¬ 
ference in their desire for much land. 
In Germany there are some estates embracing many thou¬ 
sands of acres. But these belong to the nobles, who either 
cultivate them by means of large capital under skillful direc¬ 
tion, or keep large portions of them in forests for the pleasures 
of hunting and for future supplies of timber and fuel. The- 
same is true in France. A very large portion of the arable 
lands, however, is minutely divided, so that each occupant 
may be the owner of the land he tills. 
Thus in Belgium much the larger number of forms fall be¬ 
low five acres in area, while in France the number of farms 
having less than ten acres is over three million ; the average 
size for the whole empire being fifteen acres. 
If now we enquire into the practical results of this extreme 
subdivision, we shall be astonished at the dispasity between 
even French agriculture—which has neither enjoyed nor de¬ 
served the credit of being the best in the world—and our own. 
