The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-06-17


ferent classes of agricultural proprietors MS fol-
lows:
Class. No. ofowners. No. of hectares.
tors. g.. ID 5i,sss 4,5ls,ss5
rro apS,Il LIST $1,000 4,sl9,s64
c;rcno,s, I'd 256,O00 7,38S,O33
Poor proprie- LIST 774,62O 7,s43, 494
tors. ...... I'd 2,7S7,ll2 l265O,9l4
Total. ....... 1899, 1892 45,7OI,O3O
If this table were correct, the average quantity
of land owned by each of the poor proprieters
would be something less than five and three
fourths hectares, Ga hectare is equal to 2 2 5ths
acres. This might suffice for the support Of
their families, supposing each family to consist
Of five persons. were the distribution an equal
one. But while few have more than snbsis-
tence the great majority live in the deepest in
digence and are nothing more than day laborers
who own their lodgings.
But M. Chateauvieux has committed capital
error in his table Instead of taking, the basis
of his calculation, the 26J millions hectares of
land actuaig under cultivation, he has added the
forests, gardens orchards, prairies vineyards and
grass lands, so as to make nearly forty-six mil
lions. If all the vineyards, gardens, orchards
among the four millions of agricultural proprie-
tors, the share of each will be between eighteen
and nineteen acres. But as many of them own
immense estates---for instance, the Duke de
Luynes, whose landed property is estimated at
from sixty to seventy millions,-the smaller
properties are evidently insufficient to support
the families which occupy them. The number
of persons composing these families is reckoned
at l7S08 $50. AS the whole country popula-
ton is not quite % millions, there are ten mil
lions of peasants agricultural laborers and their
families, who have no interest in the soil.
Conclusions in harmony with the facts are
that less than one hundred thousand rich pro-
prietors own nearly one-thrd of the arabic sur
face Of France that another third is owned by
less than three hundred and fifty thousand and
that the remaining one is parcelled out in small
quantities among more than three millions of
owners, most of whom own little more than the
miserable cabins which they occupy.
CONSEQUENCES OF LAND-sUBDrvIsIoN.
Absence of domestic comfort Any one who
has visited the cabins in any agricultural district
in France has observed the want Of furniture,
convenient cooking utensils, bed clothes, stair
ways and floors in the habtations of the farmers.
A rough " OGDEN oder, is in most cases, a sub
.stitute for the stairway, and in many, the worn
out floor has been patched up with fag-stones,
or clay or earth has been put into the intervals
between the joist logs. In Brittany, it is no I'M
common thing to find the one room ofthe farmer
divided by slight railing he and his family oc-
cupying one side and the pigs and plough horses
the other. NJ. Blanqu member of the Institute,
says on this subject:
Many of these so-called proprietors are in
want of everything of clothing to cover them
selves, Of food to eat Much of the taxat on
bears heavily on miserable huts, whose occupants
are too poor to repair the thatched roof which
let's in the cold and the rain, or even to prop up
the walls which threaten, day after day, to fall
into ruins"
II. Loss of Labor. AS there are few walls or
fences around the fields, and most of the pro-
prietors are too poor to enclose with hedges the
farmer must either lose altogether the aid of his
wife and children in field labor, or submit to the
most severe privations. If he keeps a few
chickens, one of his children must keep them
from the fields of his neighbors pig requires
of course constant watching; and horse or
COW is never let out to pasture, but is led out
by the owner with halter around its neck Ifl
large pasture ground were common, each neigh
borhood might unite and pay some one persons
for taking care of the horses, another for the
geese, fourth for the smaller poultry, &c. But
this is in most cases, impracticable, each one
having his small plot of grass for his own use.
The necessary consequences is diet almost
purely vegetable, or the loss of the labor of the
younger members of the family.
ILL., Limited production Official statistics
show that France, with three times the amount
of arabic and pasture land, does not produce as
many horses, or beeves, or sheep, as England,
Scotland and Wales The poverty of the mass
of the agricultural proprietors placing good
farming implements out of their reach, reducing
them 10 the toilsome and insufficient culture
with the spade, and rendering il difficult for them
to alternate crops to let the lands lie fallow, or
to put them in clover, and the want Of animals
making it almost impossible to manure the felds,
the production in grain is gradually diminishing. |
While the average wheat crop to the acre is |
thirty bushels in England and Wales, il is only |
about fourteen in France. Taking barley, or
oats, or irunips for a standard the difference in
favor Of the large farms of England is still
greater
Nv. The imporerishment Of The soii--As this
is evident from the facts just stated, it is un-
necessary to enlarge.
V. Frequent salss.--In an old and settled
country, sales of real estate should be com
paratively rare. This is far from being the case
in France. The official returns for 1871 show
that there were In that year alone l059,4dl !
transfers Of land. That this movement WINS
chiefly among the small proprietors will be
evident IL we compare the number Of sales for
1900 francs and less with the number above |
that sum- In the first category find 763 524, +
leaving only 1897 for the number of sales
above 1900 frarcs. As these last averaged only
SAGE francs apiece, It may be fairy concluded
that the great mass Of them were not Of high
value. II may be ssid that this large number
of sales Of real estate, Il u proves the strateDed