5,lS Young’s TRAVELS IN FRANCE .
break ; to effedt which, would demand no inconftderab’e forefight and knowledge ofthe bufinefs.
By the plan of letting the lands, as foon as brought 'nto complete cultivation, thecapital employed in the undertaking would be exerted to the utmoft force and advantagein fpreading the improvement over the greateft poffible breadth of wade. If the landswere all to be kept accumulating into one farm, it would grow too vaft to be managedwith profit; but, by letting, the principal attention, exertion, and force of capital wouldbe always employed where moft wanted and mod ufeful ; and it is hardly to be believedby thole not accuftomed to fuch obfervations and inquiries, how great a traft of countrymight, in twenty years, be improved.
Planting colonies of foreigners upon wafles, has been a favourite method purfued infeveral countries, particularly in Spain and in Ruffia ; fuch (peculations have rarely an-fwered the immenfe expences bellowed upon them. The lands are ufually but half im-proved ; the hufbandry introduced is alruoll fure to be bad; and the jealoufy with vvnichthe newfettlers are viewed by the natives, prevents their practice from ever being imitated.Such a mode of improvement as is here fketched would be infinitely more beneficial;what was done would be well done, all would be executed by natives, for the onlyforeigner employed in the bufinefs fhould be the director. There would be no proba-bility of the improvement not being durable and fpreading widely, for the lands not beinglet until the cultivation was completely in train, the profit as well as the method wouldbe feen by every one.
By executing the improvement of a wafte on thefe principles, ten thoufand poundswould have an infinitely greater effect than an hundred thoufand expended in any othermethod: in the German colonies, efiablilhed in the Siera Morena in Spain , and in va-rious others in'different parts of Europe , much attention has been paid to the eftabliffi-ing of little farms only. I do not want to view fuch, to know that the improvement isbeggarly, and the hufbandry contemptible : no wafte can be really improved, and tothe bell advantage, but by means of the fheep, powerfully applied ; all other methodsare coftly, flow, and of weak effect; but no little farmer can have a ftock fufficient. Thispaltry idea, of eftablilhing nothing but little farms, is the relult of moft impolitical ideasrefpe&ing population, which ought never to be the object of a moment’s attention. Ifit exift idle, or beyond the proportion of employment, it is the fource of poverty andwretchednefs ; it is valuable only in proportion to regular and active employment; findthat employment, and you will have an induftrious active population in fpite of everyobftacle. But final 1 farms and little divifible properties, increafing the people withoutincreafing employment, has no other tendency than to propagate idle beggars, andto diffeminate modes of hulbandry calculated to exhauft the land, and keep its culti-vators in mifery. This is not theory but fact, of which almoft every province in France abounds with glaring inftances. But of this more in another chapter.
There is another fort of wafte land, that abounds alfo very much in France , I meanjrnarfhes: it is afferted, that there are from i,2oc,oco to 1,500,000 * arpents of themin France . The improvement of thefe is vaftly more expenfive and more difficult than,that of landcs , heaths, moors, he. The drains demanded for them require a confider-able capital. Thefe ought to be converted to meadow and rich pafture, by means ofdraining. Where they admit it, thecheapeft improvement of fuch is by irrigation ; the.general drainage of great marfhes, if not trufted by the affemblies of the departments to
* Rapport du Com'ilc d'AgticuUur:, ife- i Fcv. 1790. par M. de Lamerville, depute de Berri, p. 3. De laNtecjfiti d'occvptr tous ! csgros Ouviisrs ) 1798, par M. Boncerf. p. 3.
the