The disadvantage, when disadvantage there is, of small or rather of peasant farming, as compared with capitalist farming, must chiefly consist in inferiority of skill and knowledge; but it is not true, as a general fact, that such inferiority exists. Countries of small farms and peasant farming, Flanders and Italy, had a good agriculture many generations dans l'autre. Et encore est-il juste d'observer qu'en Belgique presque rien n'est perdu des engrais donnés par des animaux nourris à peu près toute l'année à l'étable, tandis qu'en Angleterre la pâture en plein air affaiblit considérablement les quantités qu'il devient possible de mettre entièrement à profit.

'Dans le département du Nord aussi, ce sont les arrondissements dont les fermes ont la moindre contenance qui entretiennent le plus d'animaux. Tandis que les arrondissements de Lille et de Hazebrouck, outre un plus grand nombre de chevaux, nourrissent, l'un l'équivalent de 52 têtes de gros bétail, l'autre l'équivalent de 46; les arrondissements où les exploitations sont les plus grandes, ceux de Dunkerque et d'Avesnes, ne contiennent, le premier, que l'équivalent de 44 bêtes bovines, l'autre, que celui de 40. (D'après la Statistique de la France publiée par le Ministre du Commerce: Agriculture, t. i.)

'Pareilles recherches étendues sur d'autres points de la France offriraient des résultats analogues. S'il est vrai que dans la banlieue des villes, la petite culture s'abstienne de garder des animaux, au produit desquels elle supplée facilement par des achats d'engrais, il ne se peut que le genre de travail qui exige le plus de la terre ne soit pas celui qui en entretienne le plus activement la fertilité. Assurément il n'est pas donné aux petites fermes de posséder de nombreux troupeaux de moutons, et c'est un inconvénient; mais, en revanche, elles nourrissent plus de bêtes bovines que les grandes. C'est là une nécessité à laquelle elles ne sauraient se soustraire dans aucun des pays où les besoins de la consommation les ont appelées à fleurir; elles périraient si elles ne réussissaient pas à y satisfaire.

Voici, au surplus, sur ce point des détails dont l'exactitude nous paraît pleinement attestée par l'excellence du travail où nous les avons puisés. Ces détails, contenus dans la statistique de la commune de Vensat (Puy de Dôme), publiée récemment par M. le docteur Jusseraud, maire de la commune, sont d'autant plus précieux, qu'ils mettent dans tout leur jour la nature des changements que le développement de la petite culture a, dans le pays dont il s'agit, apportés au nombre et à l'espèce des animaux dont le produit en engrais soutient et accroît la fertilité des terres. Dans la commune de Vensat, qui comprend 1612 hectares divisés en 4600 parcelles appartenant à 591 propriétaires, le territoire exploité se compose de 1466 hectares. Or, en 1790, 17 fermes en occupaient les deux tiers et 20 autres tout le reste. Depuis lors, les cultures se sont morcelées, et maintenant leur petitesse est extrême. Quelle a été l'influence du changement sur la quantité des animaux? Une augmentation considérable. En 1790, la commune ne possédait qu'environ 300 bêtes à cornes, et de 1800 à 2000 bêtes à laine; adjourd'hui elle compte 676 des premières, et 533 seulement des secondes. Ainsi pour remplacer 1300 moutons elle a acquis 376 boeufs et vaches, et tout compensé, la somme des engrais s'est accrue dans la proportion de 490 à 729, ou de plus de 48 pour cent. Et encore est il à remarquer que, plus forts et mieux nourris à présent, les animaux contribuent bien davantage à entretenir la fertilité des terres. 'Voilà ce que les faits nous apprennent sur ce point: il n'est donc pas vrai que la petite culture ne nourrisse pas autant d'animaux que les autres; loin de là, à conditions locales pareilles, c'est elle qui en possède le plus, et il ne devait pas être difficile de le présumer; car, du moment où c'est elle qui demande le plus aux terres, il faut bien qu'elle leur donne des soins d'autant plus réparateurs qu'elle en exige davantage. Que l'on prenne un à un les autres reproches; qu'on les examine à la clarté de faits bien appréciés, on s'appercevra bientôt qu'ils ne sauraient être mieux fondés, et qu'ils n'ont été formulés que parce qu'on a comparé l'état des cultures dans des contrées où les causes de la prospérité agricole n'agissaient avec la même énergie' (pp. 116-120),

pas

before England, and theirs is still, as a whole, probably the best agricul ture in the world. The empirical skill, which is the effect of daily and close observation, peasant farmers often possess in an eminent degree. The traditional knowledge, for example, of the culture of the vine, possessed by the peasantry of the countries where the best wines are produced, is extraordinary. There is no doubt an absence of science, or at least of theory; and to some extent a deficiency of the spirit of improvement, so far as relates to the introduction of new processes. There is also a want of means to make experiments, which can seldom be made with advantage except by rich proprietors or capitalists. As for those systematic improvements which operate on a large tract of country at once (such as great works of draining or irrigation) or which for any other reason do really require large numbers of workmen combining their labour, these are not in general to be expected from small farmers, or even small proprietors, though combination among them for such purposes is by no means unexampled, and will become more common as their intelligence is more developed.

Against these disadvantages is to be placed, where the tenure of land is of the requisite kind, an ardour of industry absolutely unexampled in any other condition of agriculture. This is a subject on which the testimony of competent witnesses is unanimous. The working of the petite culture cannot be fairly judged where the small cultivator is merely a tenant, and not even a tenant on fixed. conditions, but (as in Ireland) at a nominal rent greater than can be paid, and therefore practically at a varying rent always amounting to the utmost that can be paid. To understand the subject, it must be studied where the cultivator is the proprietor, or at least a métayer with a permanent tenure; where the labour he exerts to increase the produce and value of the land avails wholly, or at least partly, to his own benefit and that of his descendants. In another division of our subject, we shall discuss at some length the important subject of tenures of land, and I defer till then any citation of evidence on the marvellous industry of peasant proprietors. It may suffice here to appeal to the immense amount of gross produce which, even without a permanent tenure, English labourers generally obtain from their little allotments; a produce beyond comparison greater than a large farmer extracts, or would find it his interest to extract, from the same piece of land.

And this I take to be the true reason why large cultivation is generally most advantageous as a mere investment for profit. Land occupied by a large farmer is not farmed so highly. There is not nearly so much labour expended on it. This is not on account of any economy arising from combination of labour, but because, by employing less, a greater return is obtained in proportion to the outlay. It does not answer to anyone to pay others for exerting all the labour which the peasant, or even the allotment holder, gladly undergoes when the fruits are to be wholly reaped by himself. This labour, however, is not unproductive: it all adds to the gross produce. With anything like equality of skill and knowledge, the large farmer does not obtain nearly so much from the soil as the small proprietor, or the small farmer with adequate motives to exertion: but though his returns are less, the labour is less in a still greater degree, and as whatever labour he employs must be paid for, it does not suit his purpose to employ more.

But although the gross produce of the land is greatest, ceteris paribus,

under small cultivation, and although, therefore, a country is able on that system to support a larger aggregate population, it is generally assumed by English writers that what is termed the net produce, that is, the surplus after feeding the cultivators, must be smaller; that, therefore, the population disposable for all other purposes, for manufactures, for commerce and navigation, for national defence, for the promotion of knowledge, for the liberal professions, for the various functions of government, for the arts and literature, all of which are entirely dependent on this surplus for their existence as occupations, must be less numerous; and that the nation, therefore (waving all question as to the condition of the actual cultivators), must be inferior in the principal elements of national power, and in many of those of general well-being. This, however, has been taken for granted much too readily. Undoubtedly the non-agricultural population will bear a less ratio to the agricultural, under small than under large cultivation. But that it will be less numerous absolutely, is by no means a consequence. If the total population, agricultural and non-agricultural, is greater, the non-agricultural portion may be more numerous in itself, and may yet be a smaller proportion of the whole. If the gross produce is larger, the net produce may be larger, and yet bear a smaller ratio to the gross produce. Yet even Mr. Wakefield sometimes appears to confound these distinct ideas. In France it is computed that two-thirds of the whole population are agricultural. In England, at most, one-third. Hence Mr. Wakefield infers, that 'as in France only three people are supported by the labour of two cultivators, while in England the labour of two cultivators supports six people, English agriculture is twice as productive as French agriculture,' owing to the superior efficiency of large farming, through combination of labour. But in the first place, the facts themselves are overstated. The labour of two persons in England does not quite support six people, for there is not a little food imported from foreign countries, and from Ireland. In France, too, the labour of two cultivators does much more than supply the food of three persons. It provides the three persons, and occasionally foreigners, with flax, hemp, and to a certain extent with silk, oils, tobacco, and latterly sugar, which in England are wholly obtained from abroad; nearly all the timber used in France is of home growth, nearly all which is used in England is imported; the principal fuel of France is procured and brought to market by persons reckoned among agriculturists, in England by persons not so reckoned. I do not take into calculation hides and wool, these products being common to both countries, nor wine or brandy produced for home consumption, since England has a corresponding production of beer and spirits; but England has no material export of either article, and a great importation of the last, while France supplies wines and spirits to the whole world. I say nothing of fruit, eggs, and such minor exportable articles of agricultural produce. But, not to lay undue stress on these abatements, we will take the statement as it stands. Suppose that two persons, in England, do bona fide produce the food of six, while in France, for the same purpose, the labour of four is requisite. Does it follow that England must have a larger surplus for the support of a non-agricultural population? No; but merely that she can devote two-thirds of her whole produce to the purpose, instead of one-third. Suppose the produce to be twice as great, and the one-third will amount to as much as the twothirds. The fact might be, that owing to the greater quantity of labour employed on the French system, the same land would produce food for

twelve persons which on the English system would only produce it for six and if this were so, which would be quite consistent with the conditions of the hypothesis, then although the food for twelve was produced by the labour of eight, while the six were fed by the labour of only two, there would be the same number of hands disposable for other employment in the one country as in the other. I am not contending that the fact is so. I know that the gross produce per acre in France averages much less than in England, and that, in proportion to the extent and fertility of the two countries, England has in the sense we are now speaking of, much the largest disposable population. But the disproportion certainly is not to be measured by Mr. Wakefield's simple criterion. As well might it be said that agricultural labour in the United States, where, by the last census, four families in every five appeared to be engaged in agriculture, must be still more inefficient than in France.

The inferiority of French cultivation (which, taking the country as a whole, must be allowed to be real, though much exaggerated,) is probably more owing to the lower general average of industrial skill and energy in that country, than to any special cause and even if partly the effect of minute subdivision, it does not prove that small farming is disadvantageous, but only (what is undoubtedly the fact) that farms in France are very frequently too small, and, what is worse, broken up into an almost incredible number of patches or parcelles, most inconveniently dispersed and parted from one another.

As a question, not of gross, but of net produce, the comparative merits of the grande and the petite culture, especially when the small farmer is also the proprietor, cannot be looked upon. as decided. It is a question on which good judges at present differ. The current of English opinion is in favour of large farms: on the Continent, the weight of authority seems to be on the other side. Professor Rau, of Heidelberg, the author of one of the most comprehensive and elaborate of extant treatises on political economy, and who has that large acquaintance with facts and authorities on his own subject, which generally characterizes his countrymen, lays it down as a settled truth, that small or moderate-sized farms yield not only a larger gross, but a larger net produce: though, he adds, it is desirable there should be some great proprietors, to lead the way in new improvements. The most apparently impartial and discriminating judgment that I have met with is that of M. Passy, who (always speaking with reference to net produce) gives his verdict in favour of large farms for grain and forage; but, for the kinds of culture which require much labour and attention, places the advantage wholly on the side of small cultivation; including in this description, not only the vine and the olive, where a considerable amount of care and, labour must be bestowed on each individual plant, but also roots, leguminous plants, and those which furnish the materials of manufactures. The small size, and consequent multiplication, of farms, according to all authorities, are extremely favourable to the abundance of many minor products of agriculture.+

*See pp. 352 and 335 of a French translation published at Brussels in 1839, by M. Fred de Kemmeter, of Ghent.

+ Dans le département du Nord,' says M. Passy, 'une ferme de 20 hectares recueille en veaux, laitage, oeufs, et volailles, parfois pour un millier de francs dans l'année; et, les frais défalqués, c'est l'équivalent d'une addition au produit net de 15 à 20 francs par hectare.' Des Systêmes de Culture, p. 114.

It is evident that every labourer who extracts from the land more than his own food, and that of any family he may have, increases the means of supporting a non-agricultural population. Even if his surplus is no more than enough to buy clothes for him, the labourers who make the clothes are a non-agricultural population, enabled to exist by food which he produces. Every agricultural family, therefore, which produces its own necessaries, adds to the net produce of agriculture; and so does every person born on the land, who by employing himself on it, adds more to its gross produce than the mere food which he eats. It is questionable whether, even in the most subdivided districts of Europe which are cultivated by the proprietors, the multiplication of hands on the soil has approached, or tends to approach, within a great distance of this limit. In France, although the sub-division is confessedly too great, there is proof positive that it is far from having reached the point at which it would begin to diminish the power of supporting a non-agricultural population. This is demonstrated by the great increase of the towns; which have of late increased in a much greater ratio than the population generally, showing (unless the condition of the town labourers is becoming rapidly deteriorated, which there is no reason to believe) that even by the unfair and inapplicable test of proportions, the productiveness of agriculture must be on the increase. This, too, concurrently with the amplest evidence that in the more improved districts of France, and in some which, until lately, were among the unimproved, there is a considerably increased consumption of country produce by the country population itself.

In the present chapter, we do not enter on the question of great and small cultivation in any other respect than as a question of production, and of the efficiency of labour. We shall return to it hereafter as affecting the distribution of the produce, and the physical and social well-being of the cultivators themselves; in which aspect it deserves, and requires, a still more particular examination.

CHAPTER X.

OF THE LAW OF THE INCREASE OF LABOUR.

§1. WE have now successively considered each of the agents or conditions of production, and of the means by which the efficacy of these various agents is promoted. In order to come to an end of the questions which relate exclusively to production, one more, of primary importance, remains.

Production is not a fixed but an increasing thing. When not kept back by bad institutions, or a low state of the arts of life, the produce of industry has usually tended to increase; stimulated not only by the desire of the producers to augment their means of consumption, but by the increasing number of the consumers. Nothing in political economy can be of more importance than to ascertain the law of this increase of production; the conditions to which it is subject; whether it has practically any limits, and what these are. There is also no subject in political economy which is popularly less understood, or on which the errors committed are of a character to produce, and do produce, greater mischief. We have seen that the essential requisites of production are three