e
in rags, and debt ultimately consumes him. He is of no good either
to himself or to others or to the country. For in our country
agriculture, whether by plough or spade, is confined to three
things, to grass, corn, or cattle, and there is no plant like the
vine by which a small proprietor may prosper. Wet seasons come, and
see--even the broad acres cultivated at such an expense of money
produce nothing, and the farmer comes to the verge of ruin. But this
verge of ruin to the small proprietor who sees his four acres of
crops destroyed means simple extinction. So that the amount of land
to be of advantage is that amount which the cottager can cultivate
without giving his entire time to it; so that, in fact, he may also
earn wages.

To landowner and farmer the value of a fixed population like this,
fixed and independent, and looking only for payment for what was
actually done, and not for eleemosynary earnings, would be, I think,
very great. There would be a constant supply of first-class labour
available all the year round. A supply of labour on an estate is
like water-power in America--indispensable. But if you have no
resident supply you face two evils--you must pay extra to keep men
there when you have no real work for them to do, or you must offer
fancy wages in harvest. Now, I think a resident population would do
the same work if not at less wages at the time of the work, yet for
less money, taking the year through.

I should be in hopes that such a plan would soon breed a race of men
of the sturdiest order, the true and natural countrymen; men
standing upright in the face of all, without one particle of
servility; paying their rates, and paying their rents; absolutely
civil and pleasant-mannered, because, being really independent, they
would need no impudence of tongue to assert what they did not feel;
men giving a full day's work for a full day's wages (which is now
seldom seen); men demanding to be paid in full for full work, but
refusing favours and petty assistance to be recouped hereafter; able
to give their children a fixed home to come back to; able even to
push them in life if they wish to leave employment on the land; men
with the franchise, voting under the protection of the ballot, and
voting first and foremost for the demolition of the infernal
poor-law and workhouse system.

The men are there. This is no imaginary class to be created, they
are there, and they only require homes to become the fine