fixed terms. "Give a man the secure possession of a bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden; give him a nine years' lease of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert."
The details which have been cited, and those, still more minute, to be found in the same authorities, concerning the habitually elaborate system of cultivation, and the thousand devices of the peasant proprietor for making every superfluous hour and odd moment instrumental to some increase in the future produce and value of the land, will explain what has been said in a previous chapter[1] respecting the far larger gross produce which, with anything like parity of agricultural knowledge, is obtained from the same quality of soil on small farms, at least when they are the property of the cultivator. The treatise on "Flemish Husbandry" is especially instructive respecting the means by which untiring industry does more than outweigh inferiority of resources, imperfection of implements, and ignorance of scientific theories. The peasant cultivation of Flanders and Italy is affirmed to produce heavier crops, in equal circumstances of soil, than the best cultivated districts of Scotland and England. It produces them, no doubt, with an amount of labour which, if paid for by an employer, would make the cost to him more than equivalent to the benefit; but to the peasant it is not cost, it is the devotion of time which he can spare, to a favourite pursuit, if we should not rather say a ruling passion.[2]
- ↑ Supra, Book i. ch. ix. 4.
- ↑ Read the graphic description by the historian Michelet, of the feelings of a peasant proprietor towards his land.
"Si nous voulons connaître la pensée intime, la passion, du paysan de France, cela est fort aisé. Promenons-nous le dimanche dans la campagne, suivons-le. Le voilà qui's'en va là-bas devant nous. II est deux heures; sa femme est à vêpres; il est endimanché; je réponds qu'il va voir sa maîtresse.
"Quelle maîtresse? sa terre.
"Je ne dis pas qu'il y aille tout droit. Non, il est libre ce jour-là, il est
