The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-01 00:00:00

PRIMITIVE AGRARIANISM.

The St. Paul's Magazine, for February, has a very inte.
resting description of the peculiar arrangement between
landlord and tenant in Tuscany:—The practice which pre-
vails there is in direct violation of all the most
thoroughly received canons of the science of poli-
tical economy. It is extremely primitive and old-
fashioned. It is in nowise conducive to progress.
Nevertheless, all parties there are perfectly agreed to
regard this old-fashioned system as the best possible form
of arrangement of such matters. The arrangement that
prevails between landlord and farmer is called the
" mezzeria" system. This word" mezzeria "—penultimate
syllable to be pronounced long—is derived from "mezzo"
middle or half, and means the equal division of the pro-
duce of the soil between the owner and the cultivator of
the laud. Leases are unknown. The farmer has no
security whatever that the current year may not bo the
last of his tenancy ; but usuage is all-powerful in defining
the terms of a somewhat complex contract. They never
vary, or vary very slightly, and in quite small and unim-
portant matters ; and they are well known to every man
of the agricultural class. The landlord supplies a proper
and sufficient dwelling, for his farmer's family. He sup-
plies the beasts necessary for the cultivation of the land,
and if cows are kept he supplies them. If a beast dies, he
replaces it. He pays half the expense of such articles as
carts, ploughs, &c.—the et-ccetera being a very small one,
for the implements used on the Tuscan farm are few and
of the simplest kind; but the cultivator—contadino in
popular language, but colono in more accurate and legal
language—is bound to find himself in such implements as
would more properly be called "tools "—such as spades,
pickaxes, &c. It might be supposed that a rule so appa-
rently loose as this might lead to disputes and misunder-
standings, as it would indeed be likely to do among a less
simple people, living in a less simple stage of agricultural
progress. But here no such result ever follows. The contadino
gives the landlord the absolute and exact half of all the pro-
duce of the farm. He must not put a grape, or a grain of
corn, or a potato into his mouth, nor must his child do so;
for half that grape and half that grain of corn is the pro-
perty of the landlord. This is the theory. But it will be
very readily understood that, whereas the landlord in
practice very generally performs all that according to the
above statement it is his duty to perform, the performance
on the part of the peasant is much more lax. Of course,
every peasant and every peasant's child eats just as many
grapes, figs, peaches, and such small matters, as he likes,
and no landlord would dream of making any inquiry into
such matters. On the other hand, if the owner is resident
on his property, his servants would simply go into the
podere and take whatever they needed of such small
matters, and the contadino would not dream of consider-
ing himself in any degree aggrieved. Here it may very
probably occur to an English reader to remark, " What !
potatoes, cabbages, beans, grapes ? Why, a thrifty, a
stingy, or a grasping fellow—phrase it as you will—might
systematically support his family on such pilferings, and
enrich himself notably in time by such depredations on
his landlord's property." And to this the only answer is
that no such instances occur Does this arise from the
superior honesty of the Tuscan peasant? Hardly so. It
arises probably more from what we may call the want of
inventiveness of him. It never strikes him to conceive
such a plan of operations. Ho does not do it, because his
forefathers did not live so and his neighbours don't live
so ; and he lives in all respects just as they lived and are
living. Of course in this sort of lax, easy-going practice it
will occur that here and there a landlord is more vigilant
and exacting, and gets the name of a hard man ; and here
and there a peasant is more encroaching, and gets the
name of a bad contadino. And in tither case the
name so earned brings its punishment with it.
But these are rare exceptions. In the vast majority of
instances, landlord and contadino go on well and har-
moniously together. And Ihere would be no difficulty in
pointing to numerous families of contadini who have lived
from father to son on the same land for many generations.
Instances may be found in which they have clone so for
three centuries! Indeed, the whole peasant race is free,
contented, and.happy. He has ample house room. There
is perhaps a temptaion to dishonesty ;but the creed on
the subject is held loosely by both parties.