Juncus effusus, and other coarse grassy plants, as well as the Meadow-sweet.

35. The Brake, Pteris aquilina, is not much employed.

The thatch is held down by coarse ropes made of heath, laid across the roof from side to side, in the loop formed by every two of which is placed a large stone to keep it down, some precaution of which kind is rendered necessary by the frequent occurrence of heavy gales in winter. The thatch is supported internally by smaller ropes made of sea-bent, oat-straw, or other grasses laid across the spars.

The above brief account of the uses to which plants are applied in the Outer Hebrides, if not of much importance in an economical point of view, may at least be amusing to botanists and others; and were it to excite some degree of attention to our native plants, with reference to the uses to which many of them might be applied in the arts, the object of the writer would be attained.

W. M.

ON THE AGRICULTURE OF FRANCE, AND ON THE EFFECTS OF A

DIVISION OF PROPERTY IN LAND. In a Letter from
Tours.

I BEGIN to doubt, since I came here, of the soundness of many of our commonly received doctrines in agriculture. Land in this country is divided into very small holdings; a great deal consists of single-plough farms; yet the variety of crops, the attention to gathering manure, to laying the land under crop dry, to weeding, and every process of farming, by no means indicate a bad or slovenly husbandry. Without a long acquaintance with the climate and country, it would be impossible to say whether the methods of cropping in use are or are not judicious; but the indications of careful active farming, as shown in the state of the land and stock, are what a stranger can judge of. Our small farmers at home are notoriously backward and slovenly in their farming; and, in exact proportion to the smallness of their holdings, are they bad farmers. This is so generally true from Orkney to Berwick, that small farms and bad farming are considered inseparable, or rather as cause and

effect. But here I see tracts of country as large as any arable district in Scotland farmed by small proprietors, and evidently as painfully farmed,-houses, yards, live-stock, harness, and utensils, as purpose-like,-green crops, those suitable to the climate, as diligently prepared and laid up for winter use,-as in any average district of Scotland farmed by farmers on a large scale. The division of property among all the children equally must always keep land divided into very small holdings, and the prejudice of the country is altogether in favour of the law. The small proprietors give a kind of garden cultivation to their small patches of land. This gives the fashion to the minute attention to bring every bit of ground into use, and to that best spirit of husbandry which is evidently advancing in France. The sound and prosperous state of the peasantry of this country is best proved by the fact, that a substitute to serve for eight years in the army, which is a respectable and comfortable station in life for a common man compared to our service, cannot be got under L. 80 Sterling; and we recruit men, at present, for life at L. 1, 1s. of bounty, and get so many that we only take men of a certain size and age.

I begin to doubt the excellence of our system of landed property as regards the well-being of the whole population, or the regular production of food for the population. Under our system of law, by which land is held by proprietors and by those under them as tenants, in great masses only, the food must always be exceeding the population, or the population be exceeding the food. Under the French system, of an equal division of land among the children, the growth of food regulates and is the basis of the increase of population. The man whose inheritance of land is too small to grow food for a family, or even to afford a house upon it to hold a family, cannot marry. He, of course, sells his lot to his brothers or neighbours, and the population is, in fact, only increased by those who have food and accommodation for the increase. I begin to think that the French are right in adopting a system which binds the growth of population to the growth of the means of support. It will not end, certainly, in making a nation of squires, but it will end in raising the most equally sustained population in Europe, and

the most free from the extremes of wealth and poverty. And what else would a government be at?

I am not surprised that the attention of men of observation in our own country, is strongly attracted to the actual effects and probable results in society of the law of succession, the equal division of property among children, in France. Thirty millions of people in the centre of Europe, have adopted a principle for the regulation of property, which is entirely different from, and at variance with, that feudal principle, which regu lates property, and is the basis, in fact, of the ideas and feelings, as well as of the laws regulating property, among all the surrounding nations. It is difficult to believe that both systems can go on in harmony together. If the French principle of an equal distribution of property of every kind, among the chil dren of the possessor, be the most equitable and beneficial to society, why should it not ultimately prevail in Europe? If the feudal principle of the succession of the oldest to the exclusion of the younger children, be the best adapted to the interests of society, by maintaining a due gradation of ranks, and an aristocratical body of landholders, and by opposing a perpetual check to the evil of a redundant population, ought not the principle in operation in France to be extinguished? Does not the safety of civilized society in every country require that the state of property among these thirty millions of people be assimilated to

that of other nations?

This law is one of the few lasting results of the forty years of revolutions and warfare of France; and it is undoubtedly the most important and influential for the future state of Europe, of any event affecting property, which has taken place since the subversion of the Roman empire, and the establishment of the feudal system. It is an obscure feeling among the people in France, that the principle on which they hold their property must be a subject of jealousy and suspicion, which occasions the present general ferment and irritation against the Polignac administration. The agitation and alarm are much greater than there is any apparent cause, or any overt act or demonstration of the new ministry, to justify; and can only be accounted for by this secret but universal feeling in men's minds,

that all is not over,—that the principle on which they hold and distribute their property is viewed with distrust by foreign nations, and is submitted to with repugnance by their own rulers *.

Man holds pro

With regard to this law of succession, I have heard it observed that it is not a wise one, inasmuch as it compels a man to bequeath his property in land in certain definite proportions, instead of leaving to him the exercise of a just discretion in a matter which affects his own immediate descendants; that it was sufficient, even in a republic, to have abolished the law of primogeniture, but that to compel a man to divide his property at his death, is a departure from the rules of a temperate legislation, and a violation even of natural rights. Now, to the principle of these observations I cannot assent. perty by no such absolute right as is here assumed. It is only under the rules of society, and for the benefit of society, that right of property in any individual to any object he possesses is acknowledged at all. A man has no such absolute right of disposal as is assumed, even of his own actions, which, of all conceivable things, are surely the most absolutely his own. A man, for instance, has a right to throw a stone, but has no right to throw a stone in the direction of his neighbour's head. That simple action even is only his own under the regulations necessary for the preservation or benefit of society: much more is the exclusive right of property in land, or other objects, to which by nature every individual in the society has an equal right, enjoyed and held by any one individual, only under the regulations and conditions necessary for the preservation and benefit of society. If this be the correct view of the principle upon which right of property in indivi

By the present law of France, inheritance is regulated by no distinction of the nature, or origin of property,-of sex, or primogeniture. The children succeed equally, although the issue of different marriages. A person cannot bequeath beyond a certain proportion of his property by testament, even to one of his own family. The succession to the remainder is determi ned by law, and hence there is a compulsory division of property, whether moveable or heritage, on the death of any possessor who leaves more than one child, or when there is more than one person having a legal right to the succession. ED.

duals is founded and regulated, it follows that no man has a right to dispose either of his actions or of his property, in a way detrimental to the interests of society; it follows, that no man has a right to beget children, and leave them at his death to be supported by his neighbours out of their property, while he himself left property sufficient, if fairly divided, to support his own children. We are all ready enough to admit, that persons in a state of such poverty and destitution that they cannot support their children without the aid of the poor's rates, ought not to have married, and have committed, in fact, a fraud upon society, in marrying without being able to support a family; but we forget that the man is equally culpable, and commits a still greater fraud upon society, who, having property to support his family, bequeaths that property entirely to one of his children, and throws upon society the burden of supporting his other children. Whether they are supported out of a tax called a poor's rate, or are supported out of the assessed and other taxes, constituting the revenue of the society,-whether they are chipping stones on the road-side, or are commanding fleets and armies, or are sitting on the Bench,-there is no difference in the argument, or in the culpability of throwing the support of a man's children entirely upon his neighbours, while he had property sufficient to support them. In both cases, the children are supported entirely at the expense of the society. Whether the employment which society provides for the pauperism of the rich, is much more beneficial or necessary than the labour provided for the inmates of the poor-house, may be matter of opinion and doubt; but it is undeniable, that, whether their services be more or less useful, the expense to society would be less, if their entire support had not been thrown upon society, if the father had, by law, been compelled to provide, as far as his property could do so, for each of the children he had thought proper to add to the society. The right of interference for the benefit of society in the distribution of property, appears, in the present state of things, undeniable. The expediency of such interference, the wisdom of such a law of division of property among children, must depend upon the effects which its operation is likely to produce upon the wealth, character, and happiness of the population. It is especially necessary