moment I believe there are several hundred thousand small freeholders in that country too indigent
capital necessary for agricultural operations has a very injurious effect."—Dig. Dev. Com. p. 365.
"The incumbrances for portioning off younger children at the death of parents frequently leave the successors to the farms without capital."—Ibid. p. 194.
Evidence of Rev. Jas. Porter, Presbyterian Minister.
"How do the farmers in general provide for their families in the event of their death?—In all the districts, a little farmer, when he dies, let his rent be what it may, is in the habit of dividing his substance amongst his children. He divides his farm between the two eldest, and gives something to his daughters and younger sons according to his circumstances; but they are beginning to see that these small divisions are injurious to them; and as education is blessing the country, that feeling is spreading."—Ibid. p. 373.
Rob. McCrea, Farmer.
" By what means are the children usually provided for at the death of their parents?—For the most part the farm is
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."—Ibid. p. 18.
"Undue subdivision, and excessive smallness of holdings, are undoubtedly a prevalent evil in some countries of peasant proprietors, and particularly in parts of Germany and France."
"The governments of Bavaria and Nassau have thought it necessary to impose a legal limit to subdivision, and the Prussian Government unsuccessfully proposed the same measure to the Estates of its Rhenish Provinces."
"Wherever the small properties are divided among too many proprietors, I believe it to be true that the large properties
