The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-23
HOW FRENCHMEN WORK THEIR FARMS Rich Land Owner Compared With Half Share Man THE AGRICULTURAL CLASS Comprises an Heirarchy That Is AL most as Powerful as the Church.
 Duties of the Ten
 ant Serf.
From Outing Magazine. In France there is hierarchy of farm

From Outing Magazine.
 In France there is a hierarchy of farm CTS.
 The great landowners we need not con- slider. They are not in their fields. They are idling, gaming, talking politics in Paris. They number their acres by the thousands. Take the French Rothc- childs, for instance--they own 100000 acres of land. Other barons of finance and many gentlemen of ancient houses are masters of similar estates.
 Such farmers" as these are at the head of the hierarchy; the farming bar on, the gentleman farmer. Their lands are exploited in the broad, business-like way that rules the syndicate wheat farms of the great northwest
 Let us go down the scale. Next in or der come the farmer generals. They are the middlemen. They are the capitalists who stand between the owner, from whom they rent 100 farms, and the ten ants to whom they sublet Few of them have ever turned furrow. The farmer general is an intermediary parasite.
 At this point in the agricultural heir archy comes the man who cultivates his fields. The largest class is made up of those who rent their farms-as in Eng land-from some great landowner; if the lease be long and the terms be good he fears not ill He owns his stock and inn plements. Usually he is well to do. He employs a dozen men, laborers, shep- herds More and more he is becoming the type of the French farmer, for the small owner-he who ploughed his own acres--is giving way before the universal tendency toward concentration; even so the little shopkeeper is being destroyed by the all absorbing department store.
 In a great measure this man is inde- pendent. Twice a year he pays his rent; probably he rents his farm on lease or three, six and nine years. He IS master of his domain. He may sell, buy, SOW, and garner as he will. Perhaps his great est difficulty is in procuring laborers for the young men go to the cities, to the factories; so he works from dawn to dusk and with him in the field his women work.
 Lower in the scale is the farmer who works his land on shares, receiving one half of the product. His farming Is done under the direction of the owner or far mer general. This is the method in vogue at Terriers, the great estate of the Baron Rothschild in the Seine-et-Marne. Usual ly but small farm is allotted to the .'half-share man." In reality, he is the serf of the new regime, for financial feu- dalitp has preserved many of the old servitudes of the soil.
 In the first place he may at any time be called away to work in the owners 8 fields. He must make all repairs. He must dig trenches wherever the owner sees fit. He must supply all the straw and hay the owner requires, and send to his kitchen eggs and butter and veg etables in season. He must allow all or any of the owners laborers to cook their food in his kitchen whenever such labor CTS are employed near by. And lastly, if the owner finds the work i'll done he may hire outside laborers and send them into the fields for which the "half-share man" must pay.