IN SCOTLAND.

183

few generations, therefore, a farm of even a considerable ex-tent, is thus frittered down into very trifling possessions.Hence there is a strong tendency, in the first stages of agri-culture, to diminish the size of farms, and to establish whathas been called the village system *.

In process of time, however, as capital increases and skillimproves, farms are enlarged; and it is found by experience,that one man can cultivate any given extent of country, (say300 or 500 acres), at less expence,—can raise a greater pro-duce,—and can afford a higher rent, than a number of smalloccupiers. During this stage of the progress, farms are con-joined, and the farmer of skill and capital, not only rentstracts of country in his own immediate neighbourhood, butis also tempted to speculate even in remote occupations.Farms thus increase to a very large extent, and indeed attaina size which appears calculated, (unless where it is the practiceto have married servants), materially to diminish the numberof persons deriving their subsistence from the cultivation olthe soil.

Two circumstances, however, afterwards take place, whichhave a strong tendency again to diminish the size of farms.

1. As the great inducement of any individual to enlarge,as far as he can, his concerns in agriculture, is owing to thecheapness of land, and to the great profits he derives from thatemployment in which he unites skill to capital; so, on theother hand, when, by competition, the rent of land increases,and when, from various causes, many competitors appear, hehas then no inducement to continue in the occupation ofmore than what he can conveniently and profitably manage.He diminishes, therefore, the extent of his concerns, bygiving up some of his farms to the proprietors, or establish-ing branches of his family on them.

2. In the vicinity of towns, and on all lands approachingto garden culture, the occupier has so many minutim to at-

Sec Farmers’ Magazine, NO. LIV, (May 1813), p. 195.