
THE 
MONTHLY 
MAGAZINE. 


No. V.—For 
On SMALL AND LARGE FARMS. 
Io the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
S it appears to be your laudable inten- 
tion to render your Publication not the 
inftrument of party on any fubjeét, but the 
medium of truth on all, J doubt not your 
attention to any argumentative objections 
(See Mon. 
w 
of legiflative and individual attention, we 
may entertain fanguine hopes of its im- 
provement; but, in the reafoning of both 
on the fubjeét, there feems to be too great 
Since agriculture has obtained fo much 
'a tendency to confider agriculture as a 
perfeét anomaly in the lift of arts; as a 
branch requiring a totally different mede 
of culture from any other that {prings 
from the fame root, as demanding, at one 
time, the moft affiduous attention to fofter 
it into pampered luxuriance, and, at an- 
other,the moft unrelenting feverity to prune 
its exuberant fhoots. The logic of Adam 
Smith has, at length, alyo/? perfuaded us 
to think, that trade, and commerce, In 
general, will profper moft when left to 
aét alone, uninterrupted by any authority, 
but reafon; or any legiflative reftrictions 
vpon the individual, but fuch as are ne- 
ceffary to fecure the more complete free 
agency of the whole. Whether your cor- 
re(pondent’s propofal, of limiting the ex- 
tent of farms, be aregulation of this na- 
‘ture, I will now enquire. 
Scarcely any farms, he complains, are 
to be found of leis than 200]. 5001. gool. 
or even 1000). per annum ; and he feems 
to confider so acres to be the proper mini- 
Montuiy Mae. No. V, 

“to the doétrine of your correfpondent, on 
the fubjeét of Large Farms. 
Mag. April 1795, page 188.) 
—— : 
yO NGs: 
eos 

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
mum of a farm, and 1530 the maximum. 
—We will firft confider the propri- 
ety of the minimum here propofed. One 
great fource of ill management, in farm- 
ing, is the keeping an unneceffary num- 
ber of horfes, or oxen, to cultivate the 
foil. Two horfes, in fome counties, are 
made to perform the work which four, or 
fix, are employed to execute in another, 
This profufion is generally condemned. 
But is there not an equal lofs of labour, 
whether you have twice the number of 
horfes neceflary to cultivate your foil, or 
half the quantity of foil neceflary to em- 
ploy your horfes? and it is undoubted, 
that the fame number of cattle, which are 
neceflary to the management of 50 acres, 
would be equal to the management of 100. 
Cattle are not the only article of lols, in 
this cafe. Every implement of hufbandry, 
which is not fully employed, ts fo much 
capital funk without an adequate _return 5 
and fo much, of confequence, Joft to the 
individual, and tothe community. The. 
other objeétions that occur, refpecting 
this minimum, will be included in the re+ 
marks fuggefted by the confideration of 
the maximum.—It is objeéted, that the 
farmers of 109, or'rso acres, cannot af- 
ford to lofe any crops from neglect, which 
he of roo acres may; and (from the ime 
poifibility of attending to the whole) it is 
thought, neceflarily zzuf?. Now, fir, in- 
ftead of faying, that “ the fmall farmer 
cannot afford to Jofe any crops,’ I would 
affert, that he cannot afford to produce 
them. The opulence of an extenfive far- 
mer is fuppofed toinfpire him with neglect. 
But what conftitutes this opulence, but the 
largenefs of his capital? and it is welk. 
known, that the productivenefs of land ts, 
genevally, ym proportion to the capital exe 
cages pended: 
