“I have a piece of news for you,” said my father, one day after dinner.

“The news always comes with the dessert,” observed my mother, smiling; “and a very pleasant dessert it is for people who live in a country village.”

“When it comes after dinner,” said I, “it is certain it can be nothing of supreme importance, because if it was, papa could not keep it to himself till then.”

My father laughed, and said he had a good mind not to tell me at all, that I might see whether he could not keep a piece of good news to himself.

“Perhaps I know it already?” said I.

“That is impossible,” replied he; “for I was the very first person to whom it was told, and that was less than an hour before dinner. But come; let us hear what you think it is.”

“Nay,” said I, “that would be letting out my secret: but if you will tell half, perhaps I will declare the rest.”

“Well, then; the gardener tells me his daughter Maria is going to be married——”

“To Joe Harper,” I instantly added.

“Who told you, Lucy?”

“I have known it these three years.”

“Impossible, my dear. It was settled only this morning.”

“Well; I knew that they were attached three years ago, and that Joe was constant, and brought back a true heart.” And I told the story.

“I am glad you can keep a secret, my dear. But as to keeping a secret from you, that I am afraid is impossible.”

“Nay, papa, I could not help seeing what was before my eyes; and I assure you I did not pry.”

“No; you only laid circumstances together, and fancied a pretty love story out of them.”

“And as true as it is pretty, papa. But I know nothing more than the fact of their attachment; so pray tell us all you can:—when they are to marry and where they are to live, and——”

“And how they are to live,” added my mother; “for that is the most important question.”

My father told us that Joe had received high wages while abroad; and had saved a considerable sum. It was not yet settled what he was to do with it: but he had the choice of two or three occupations, for any of which he was well fitted. He added that Maria wished to consult my mother about their plans.

My mother was ready to do anything she could for young people for whom she had a high respect and regard.

Joe Harper had the offer from his master of a small farm, if he chose to employ his capital in stocking it; but Joe had seen so much of the danger and difficulty incurred by beginning to farm without sufficient capital, that he did not choose to venture. As for borrowing a little to add to his own and buying a very small property, as his father hinted that he might, he would not for a moment listen to it. He declared that he knew small properties to bring nothing but ruin, if they were the only dependance of the labouring man; and that if he had a legacy to-morrow of a farm of fifty acres, he would sell it immediately, unless a very pretty capital in money were left with it. This was said in the hearing of two or three neighbours who were curious to know what he had seen abroad that gave him such a horror of small properties.

“I have seen more misery than I could easily give you an idea of: and that, too, in spite of the most indefatigable industry. In Languedoc, a province of France, there are mountains which are cultivated to the very top, by means which no one dreams of here. But those who cultivate them are miserably poor, because each possesses a piece of ground which can never, by the best management, be made to maintain a family. I have seen people carrying earth in baskets on their backs to the top of a mountain which was of itself too rocky for anything to grow upon it.”

“That puts me in mind,” said the sergeant, “of what I have heard about China. The people there are too numerous for the produce of the land, and therefore many are in the lowest depths of poverty. I am told that it is no uncommon thing there for a man to take possession of a ledge of rock which cannot be got at but by his companions letting him down by a rope from the mountain top. They let down baskets of earth to him, which he spreads to a sufficient thickness, and then sows his seed, and he and his neighbours share the produce. There he hangs, poor creature, in the heat of the day, toiling on the burning rock, to raise a quantity of food which would not be thought worth the trouble of a day’s work in England.”

“But,” inquired a neighbour, “why do they spend their labour in any such way? There must be some better means of getting their bread.”

“In such a case as that in Languedoc, of which I was speaking,” said Joe, “the people are attached to the soil from its being their own. It is the custom there for families to divide the paternal property; and hence arises all this poverty. A man with a family may be well off with a farm of two hundred acres, and his two sons may do well enough on one hundred each: but when this one hundred is divided among five children, and then again among their five children, it becomes too small to be tilled with any advantage. And yet these young folks are deceived by the notion of having landed property; and they marry when the land is divided into roods, as readily as if they had a fine estate.”

“Surely, Joe, that cannot be?”

“It is perfectly true, I assure you. I have seen a family as much attached to half and even a quarter of a rood as if it had been a hundred acres.”

“But that is downright folly.”

“I can imagine, however, that it is hard to give up a bit of land that has been in the family for generations.”

“But what happens at last?”

“They are obliged at last to sell, of course, and betake themselves to other employments. They are wise if they begin to sell soon enough.”

“I have heard,” said the sergeant, “that the reason why we find so many Swiss in other countries is, that the land is divided and divided again, in the way you describe, till the people cannot live upon it.”

“In Switzerland,” said Joe, “they do not commonly go on to the last moment before they sell. When a small farmer leaves his estate among his children, it is common for the eldest of the richest son to purchase their slips of land from his brothers and sisters, while they find a subsistence in other countries as soldiers, valets, tutors, and governesses.”

“And why not in their own?”

“Because Switzerland is a poor country, and there is not capital enough in it to employ its population.”

“I have often wondered,” said one, “why we hear so much of Swiss regiments in the armies of other countries.”

“And Swiss governesses are often met with in France and Germany, and even in England: and gentlemen travelling abroad are frequently attended by a Swiss servant.”

“They cannot love their country as other people do, or they would not leave it so readily.”

“Indeed, you are quite mistaken there,” cried Joe. “There is no nation upon earth more attached to home and country. Did you never hear of a certain air of which the Swiss are very fond, and which affects them so much when they hear it played in foreign lands, that it is dangerous to indulge them with it?”

“It was forbidden to be played in the hearing of a Swiss regiment,” said the sergeant, “lest it should make the men desert. When they heard it, they cast themselves down on the ground, and some seemed half dead with the violence of their emotion.emotion.”

“How beautiful the music must be!”

“Not particularly so to us, any more than our “God save the King” is to them: but its power lies in the recollections it calls up. It is the air which sounds along the mountain pastures when the cows wander home in the evening: so, when the exile hears it, he thinks of the glorious mountains of his country, glowing in the setting sun. He hears the lowing of the herds: he sees the pretty cottage in a sheltered nook, and remembers his brethren and friends; and these recollections are too much for him.”

“No wonder,” said the sergeant. “But I believe they seldom banish themselves for life.”

“No: they have a hope of saving enough to support them in their latter days, in their native province. But it is a very hard case; and a man will bear much before he will submit to exile, even from his paternal estate. In one place, in France, I saw several horses with a man attending each, with pannier-loads of sea ooze which they were carrying many miles to manure their little fields. In another place, I saw women cutting grass for their cows by the side of the road, in harvest time: and this was in a rich country too.”

“It is a pity there was no large farmer in the neighbourhood to employ them to better purpose.”

“So I thought when I saw a stout, hearty man walking seven miles to sell two chickens, which would not bring him more than a shilling a piece, as he told me.”

“Why, they would not pay the wear of his shoes and their own feed—to say nothing of his time and labour.”

“But I cannot see, Joe,” said his father, “why these people should not keep their bit of land, and labour for others also. It is what some of our cottagers do.”

“They are above it, father, sometimes; and in most cases there is no work for them. It is generally found that those who have been brought up to a little estate of their own never do labour with heart and good will for other people. A man would rather dawdle about his own little farm, fancying that there is something for him to do, than let himself for a labourer. He will look for a hole in his hedge, he will carry earth in a basket to the top of a mountain, he will walk ten miles to sell an egg, and he will be content with twopence a day on his own ground instead of half-a-crown on another man’s, if he is born to call himself a landed proprietor. It frequently happens, however, that there is no employment for him elsewhere: for where these small properties abound, there are not many large: so that the population is, in those places, far too great in proportion,—not perhaps to the land,—but to its productiveness.”

“Do you mean to say that there is this poverty wherever there are small properties?”

“By no means. In some districts the soil is so fertile that it repays most amply whatever labour is spent upon it. On the banks of certain rivers, and sometimes throughout a whole province, the little farmers are very comfortably off as long as they make their children provide for themselves by some other way than cutting the land into strips. But I think I may say that wherever capital is required to improve the soil, and wherever an estate is liable to be divided into roods, or half and quarter roods, such a possession is more of a curse than a blessing to the owner and to society.”

“I suppose, Joe,” said a bystander, “that you are as great an admirer of the law of primogeniture as any true Englishman should be? Of course you are, as you say so much against small properties.”

“I do not see how the one follows from the other,” replied Joe. “On the contrary, I utterly disapprove of the interference of the law in the disposal of private property.”

“Only contrast France and England,” said the sergeant, “and see what opposite mischiefs the meddling of the law has caused in both. In France, there is a law of succession which divides estates in certain proportions among the children of a family, independently of the will of the father; and the consequence is, that the land is subdivided to such an extent as to discourage the improvement of agriculture, and to expose the nation to many of the ills Joe has been describing, except where the heirs are prudent enough to prevent the evil by private agreement. In England, the law of primogeniture has encouraged the accumulation of property in a few hands to a very mischievous extent. Our noblemen embellish their parks, and plant woods to a certain distance round their mansions; but the rest of the property generally suffers for the enormous sums spent on a part, and is left unimproved. There are far too many estates in this kingdom too large to be properly managed by the care of one man, or by the reproduceable capital of one family.”

“The days are past,” said Joe, “when every true Englishman must uphold the law of primogeniture.”

“Well, then, Joe, letting the law alone,—I suppose you like the custom of primogeniture?”

“Little better than the law, neighbour.”

“What security would you have then, against such subdivision of property as you have been groaning over for this hour past?”

“A security as strong as any law that ever was made,—the feelings of a parent guided by experience. Those feelings have been stifled too long by a law and a custom which neither principle nor policy can justify; but let them have fair play, and you will find that a man will be as unwilling on the one hand to prepare for his great-grandchildren being impoverished by the division of the land, as, on the other, to turn all his younger children adrift for the sake of enriching the eldest.”

“What would you do, then, if you could govern in this matter?”

“I should leave parents to dispose of their property as they would, trusting that if they had a perfect freedom of willing, they would provide for their estates being kept of a proper size, even if they could not trust their children’s prudence. There are many ways of doing this. There might be directions that the land should be sold, and the purchase-money divided; or a legacy of land left to one of the children charged with portions or annuities to the rest; or an injunction that the family should form a sort of joint-stock company, and cultivate their property by a union of their shares. There are many other arrangements, some of which have been tried, and some have not,—every one being more just and politic than the institution of primogeniture.”

“So much for the father, and his feelings and interests,” said the sergeant. “Now let the children be considered. Is it in the least likely that they should set their hearts upon making their family property yield as little as possible? Will they not be anxious to prevent their property wasting till it melts away before it reaches the third generation from them?”

“Besides,” said Joe, “it never happens that all the members of a family have a mind for the same occupation. It would be strange, indeed, if all the sons, be they soldiers, sailors, professional men, or tradesmen, and all the daughters besides, should take a fancy to leave their employments for the sake of cultivating their land themselves; and if they either sell or let it, it may as well be to a brother as a stranger. O, depend upon it they have every inducement of interest and of principle, to keep the family estate entire, and need no law to oblige them to it.”

“But Joe, the shares of rent or annuities would become so small in time by subdivision that it would have nearly the same effect as dividing the land, would it not?”

“They would be sold before they dwindled down so far,” replied Joe: “you know there is not the same dislike to selling where the legatees do not live upon their shares as there is where they cultivate them with their own hands. There are examples enough in France of such family sales among prudent heirs to convince us that people here would find it their interest to let the landed capital of the family accumulate up to a certain point.”

“If the Swiss had ever known what might be done by the accumulation of capital and by its judicious application,” said a neighbour, “I suppose they might make their estates worth more than they are.”

“Switzerland will not always be the poor country it is,” said Joe, “for the people, primitive as they still are in many of their customs, have learned, and will learn yet more, what may be done by an economy of labour and a union or capitals. I saw one very pleasant instance of this. The little farmers keep cows in the pastures among the mountains, where there are no families near to buy their milk, or butter, or cheese; so that, some years ago, it cost them much labour and time to find a market for the produce of their cows. One poor woman, who kept some cows, six or eight miles from Geneva, carried the milk there every day for sale.”

“Six miles and back again to sell milk! Why, she had much better have been dairy-maid to some considerable farmer who would have paid her good wages.”

“To be sure. But they manage these things better now. There are large public dairies established, to which the neighbouring cow-keepers bring their daily stock of milk, which is returned to them in the form of butter and cheese; a certain quantity being kept back for payment to the owners of the dairies.”

“That is a very clever plan, and a great convenience to the people, I dare say.”

“Very great: but they would still be better off, in my opinion, as labourers in the service of some great proprietor.”

“We shall never make a farmer of you, Joe,” said his father. “You used to have a great mind for it; but now you seem quite prejudiced against it.”

“Not so, father, I hope. I think it one of the pleasantest occupations in the world; and if I had as much money as Mr. Malton, or even a good deal less, I should like nothing better than to be a farmer. The whole nation, the whole world is obliged to him who makes corn grow where it never grew before; and yet more to him who makes two ears ripen where only one ripened before. The race at large is indebted to the man who increases the means of subsistence in any way. My objection is to the imprudence of beginning to farm without a sufficient capital of land or money: and I do not see how a man that does so is more excusable than one who commits the same fault in trade.”

“Well, please yourself, son. You have gained your little money honestly, and it would be hard if you might not do what you like with it: and you seem to have thought a good deal about prudence, and about different ways of going through the world honestly and comfortably.”

“I should have travelled to little purpose, father, if I had not.”

My father is a justice of the peace. Every body connected with one who holds such an office knows what interest arises out of its transactions to those who care about the joys and sorrows, the rights and liberties of their neighbours. It was not my father’s custom to allow his family to form a little court before which a culprit might tremble, or a nervous witness be abashed. He received the parties who came to him on business in a hall, where it was not possible for the young people to peep from a door, or for the servants to listen from the stairs. My brothers were sometimes present at examinations, that they might take a lesson in what might at some future day become their duty; and we generally heard after dinner what had passed; but there was no gratification allowed to our curiosity in the presence of the parties.

On one occasion mine was very strongly excited, and I did long to gain admittance to the justice hall. I came in, one fine summer morning, from the garden, and passed through the hall, not being aware that any one was there. But there stood Norton with a gloomy brow, and Hal Williams, evidently in custody, looking the picture of shame and despair. He turned half round as I entered, to avoid meeting my eye, and pretended to brush his bare brown hat. My father appearing, I made my retreat, and was obliged to wait till the afternoon for further satisfaction. If it had not been too warm a day for walking, I should have learned the event out of doors, for the whole village rang with it. Hal was committed for sheep-stealing.

Nobody could be surprised at this, who observed how the unhappy man had been going on for some time. My father had known him to have been guilty of poaching to a great extent the winter before; but there was never evidence enough to justify his being apprehended. The next step to poaching is sheep-stealing; and this step Hal had taken. The evidence was so clear, that it was useless to attempt any defence. Norton had lost a lamb in the night. Search was made in Hal’s house; and three quarters of lamb, not cut up by a butcher, were found under some straw in his cottage; and the hide, bearing Norton’s mark, was dug up from where it had been buried, behind the dwelling.—As soon as Hal went to prison, his drooping wife, and idle unmanageable boys became chargeable to the parish.

When Norton had finished the painful task of giving his evidence against an old neighbour, he proceeded to Mr. Malton’s to do a thing more painful still. He went to offer his little farm for sale, and to let his labour where it would obtain a better reward than his two poor fields could afford. It was a sore necessity; and long was it before he could bring himself to entertain the thought. Even now, when he was quite determined, he could with difficulty nerve himself for the interview with Mr. Malton. He slackened his pace more and more as he drew near Brooke Farm; and just as he was about to enter the chesnut avenue, he remembered that he should be more likely to meet Mr. Malton if he went by the lanes; so he turned back and approached by the path which I have described as my chosen one. He stopped to watch a frog leaping across the road till he saw it safe into the opposite ditch. He plucked some wild flowers for his button-hole, but forgot to put them there, and pulled them to pieces instead. He lingered to watch the rooks as they sailed round the old elms: but their “caw, caw” which most people find rather a soothing sound, made poor Norton fidgety to-day. He was going to walk away when he heard the pacing of a horse’s feet in the dust of the lane. He looked round and started to see Mr. Malton.

“Why, Norton, you are in a reverie,” said Mr. Malton, who observed the start. “I suppose it is a holiday with you that you stand watching the rooks with your hands in your pockets?”

“It is an odd sort of a——.” Norton choked at the word “holiday.”

Mr. Malton’s face was full of concern instantly. He dismounted and led his horse by the bridle while Norton walked beside him. Both were silent for some time.

“Have you anything to say to me?” inquired Mr. Malton at length. “You trust in me, I hope, Norton, as a friend?”

“If I did not, sir, I should not be here now. If I thought you an enemy or only indifferent, I would go into the workhouse before I would tell you a syllable of what is in my mind. I came, sir, to say that I find I must give up my farm; and I wish to know what you would advise me to do with it.”

“I am glad it is no worse, Norton. I do not at all doubt that it is a sad pinch to you to give up a plan from which you once hoped so much; but you will be repaid for the effort, trust me. If you are steady in your determination, the worst of your difficulties is over.”

“I don’t think I shall change my mind again, sir. It is a sad thing to walk through my fields after crossing one of yours. One can scarcely get a finger in between your wheat-stalks, I find; and mine rise as thin and straggling as thorns in an ill-grown fence. There is nothing but ruin in such harvests as mine are likely to be.—I should be glad to sell my land, sir, and my stock, either to you or some one else, and to have work under you again, if you have it still to give me.”

“I will take your land and stock on a fair valuation; and as for employment, make your mind easy about that. One of my largest tenants is looking out for a bailiff, and I should think the situation would just suit you, Norton. I can answer for your being fit for it.”

Norton’s face crimsoned at the idea that he should not have to become a labourer on the ground which he had possessed. He had a good deal of pride left; and he was more obliged to his rich neighbour for his tenderness to this weakness than if he had given him capital to carry on his farm.

“If you obtain this situation,” continued Mr. Malton, who saw what was in his mind, “your cottage goes with your land; and you will find you have changed for the better, I assure you. My tenant gives his bailiff a very comfortable dwelling; and when you find yourself under a whole roof, with a mind free from dread and care, I think you will not repent the step you have taken.”

“I believe it, sir; and I hope you will see that your kindness is not lost upon me. Now I have felt the value of gentle treatment in misfortune, I think I shall never be hard upon those under me. I am quite ashamed, sir, to think of the strange things that I fancied I might have to go through in giving up my farm. It all seems straightforward enough now, if I can but get this appointment.”

When the mode of valuation, and the time when Mr. Malton should take the land into his own hands, were settled, the good man mounted his horse and trotted off with a kind “Good day to you.”

As soon as he was out of sight, Norton stretched himself as vigorously as if he had been bent double for twenty-four hours. He returned home, forgetting to quarrel with the rooks or to pull wild flowers to pieces by the way.way.

Education came in the train of other good things to bless the people of Brooke. There was much opposition at first from many who, having got through life so far without having learned to read, could not see why their children should not do the same. Regard to the persons concerned, however, carried the point where the principle was disputed; and when it was found that, in addition to the school being proposed by my mother and sanctioned by the clergyman, it was intended that it should be kept by Joe Harper and his wife, the opposition was in a great measure quieted. In a few months, it was hushed entirely; for the children, from seeming a set of little savages, began to look like civilized beings. They were no longer dirty, noisy, quarrelsome, and generally either crying or laughing. They could sit still without being sulky, and move about without being riotous; they could answer a question freely and respectfully at the same time: they could be industrious and cheerful at once. They could be trusted among the flowers in Joe’s garden, and learned to do no harm if admitted into the house.

Everybody was surprised that Joe should expect to raise flowers in his little court by the school-house, when so many rough children were to be at play so near: but Joe said in their hearing that he thought, when they knew how he prized his roses and pinks, they would take care not to spoil his garden. And so it proves. If the children lose a ball there, they ask for it instead of climbing the paling; and no one is ever known to pluck a flower, though a good boy or girl often wears a rose given by the master or mistress as a reward.

Joe’s house is the admiration of all who know what comfort is. The parlour has a boarded floor, which is sanded according to the old fashion. A handsome clock ticks behind the door. The best tea-tray and caddy stand on the mahogany table opposite the fire-place, and a footstool which Maria worked when a young girl, is placed under it. Joe has some books, as becomes a schoolmaster; and they are of a kind so much above what any scholar of his own rank in the village has ever seen, that it has long been hinted that Joe is a very learned man. There is a Latin grammar and dictionary, and a book all in Latin besides; or, if not Latin, nobody knows what it is. There are two books about the stars; and a volume full of figures in columns, with a name so odd that nobody catches it easily. There are besides several volumes of voyages and travels, and with them a set which, from its title, was supposed to belong to the same class. It is called the Rambler; but a neighbour, who took it down from the shelf one day, says there is nothing in it about foreign countries. There are works of a serious cast, as all would expect who are acquainted with Joe; and to these Maria has added a few religious books which were left her by her mother.—The greatest ornaments of this parlour, however, are some pictures of cities and other places abroad, which Joe brought home with him. The city of Florence is perhaps the most beautiful; but the most remarkable is a view of the bay of Naples, and mount Vesuvius in the distance. Maria is very proud of this last, as her husband saw with his own eyes the flames shooting up out of the burning mountain.

I never enjoyed a visit to the school-house more than yesterday, when I went to beg a holiday for the children on account of Mr. Malton’s harvest-home. It was a pleasure to see the troop of boys and girls pouring out of the play-ground, and laughing and talking as they hastened to the harvest-field, while Maria and I followed to share the gaiety. Joe so seldom has leisure for books, that he remained behind, sure, on such a day, of having his hours and his wits to himself. What a busy scene when we arrived! The reapers stooping to their cheerful toil,—the elderly folks full of the pleasant recollections of many harvests; the lads full of gallantry, and the lasses of mirth! How complacently Mr. Malton surveyed the field, now following the reapers to build up the shocks, now crumbling a fruitful ear of wheat in his hands, now flinging a handful from a rich sheaf to some decrepit gleaner, or to some toddling little one who must have a share in the business of the day! What an apron-full Gray’s children had gathered presently, and how kindly their father nodded to them when he stuck his sickle into the sheaf for a moment to wipe his brows! How witty Carey was cracking his jokes within earshot of the Maltons and ourselves, observing that he was not in his right place in a field of wheat,—that as a barber ought to be where there are most beards, he thought he should adjourn to the oat or barley field! How Miss Black evidently admired, as I passed her door, the bunch of wheat-ears the children had stuck into my bonnet while I left it hanging on the hedge, and sat down in the shade! My mother is certain, from Miss Black’s satisfactory nod,—as much as to say, “I have it,”—that artificial wheat-ears will wave in all bonnets next winter.

How goodly looked the last waggon, laden with golden grain, as it turned out of the field at sunset, leaving a few ears dangling from the sprays for gleaners as it creaked along the lane! Merry were the sounds from the train that followed. The songs which should have been kept for the harvest-supper began to burst forth already, the deep bass of a manly voice making itself heard above the shrill laughter of the children. This was truly the music of glad hearts.

We saw the long tables set out for the harvest-feast, and went through our annual speculations about how so much good cheer was to be consumed. As we were returning, my mother observed that it would be a fine moonlight night; and that she hoped the sergeant would come and report proceedings to us, as he would have such a lamp to light him home, however late he might be. He left the table with the first sober folks who rose to depart, and looked in on us as he passed.

“Well, sergeant!” said my father, when he entered; “have you had a merry harvest feast?”

“Very much so, sir; but I am so hoarse with singing and talking, that I am afraid I can hardly tell you much about it.”

“We will have a glass of ale,” said my father, ringing the bell; “and then you shall tell me as much as you like, and leave the rest for Carey in the morning. We must drink prosperity to Brooke, and many a merry harvest home.”

“There is prosperity in Brooke,” said the sergeant, as he set down his glass. “If any of my neighbours pretend to doubt it, and point out one or two who take parish relief, or two or three who seem to be going down in the world, I shew them the cottages on the common, well thatched and clean white-washed, with their gardens behind them. I count numbers, and prove that our population has increased one-half. I shew them the school-house and the shops, so much busier than they used to be; and the new carrier’s cart to M——, and all the improvements in the place.”

“I am heartily glad to see, sergeant, that you relish these changes; for men at your time of life do not generally like them.”

“It all depends, sir, on what the changes are.are. I am thankful that I have lived to see so many poor neighbours gathering their comforts about them; and I shall be all the more ready to go to my grave if I see a fine, thriving race of young folks rising up to do more good in the world than I have done. And if they think of me sometimes, I hope they will remember,” he continued, addressing my brothers, “that their old friend looked to them to fulfil his hearty wish of Prosperity to Brooke.”

We have not advanced to any new principles of the science of Political Economy in the present volume. We have only exemplified some of the principles laid down in our last volume by illustrations of certain truths respecting a few particular modes of accumulating and applying Capital. These truths may be arranged as follows:

Production being the great end in the employment of Labour and Capital, that application of both which secures the largest production is the best.

Large capitals well managed, produce in a larger proportion than small.

In its application to land, for instance, a large capital employs new powers of production,—as in the cultivation of wastes;

.... enables its owner to wait for ample but distant returns,—as in planting;

.... facilitates the division of labour;

.... .... the succession of crops, or division of time;

.... .... reproduction, by economizing the investment of fixed capital;

.... .... the economy of convertible husbandry;

.... .... the improvement of soils by manuring, irrigation, &c.;

.... .... the improvement of implements of husbandry;

.... .... the improvement of breeds of live stock.

Large capitals also provide for the prevention of famine, by furnishing a variety of food; and for the regular supply of the market, by enabling capitalists to wait for their returns.

Large capitals are therefore preferable to an equal aggregate amount of small capitals, for two reasons, viz.

they occasion a large production in proportion; and they promote, by means peculiar to themselves, the general safety and convenience.

Capitals may, however, be too large. They are so when they become disproportioned to the managing power.

The interest of capitalists best determines the extent of capital; and any interference of the law is therefore unnecessary.

The interference of the law is injurious; as may be seen by the tendency of the law of Succession in France to divide properties too far, and of the law of Primogeniture in England to consolidate them too extensively.

The increase of agricultural capital provides a fund for the employment of manufacturing and commercial, as well as agricultural, labour.

The interests of the manufacturing and agricultural classes are therefore not opposed to each other, but closely allied.