Ploughshare

“ Is the subletting or subdividing of farms carried on to any extent?—It is too much so; and it is injurious to the landlord as well as the tenantry themselves; it is destructive to the accumulation of capital, and lowers the farming population, so as to render them subject to greater privations than day labourers. It is done in two ways—one to provide for children marrying, by dividing the tenement, and another to procure some money, by the sale of a portion of the farm, to enable a struggling farmer to clear of a debt. ”

“ With regard to the subletting and subdividing of farms, to what extent has it been carried out, and what are its effects?—This is a ruinous measure to both landlord and tenant, and almost impossible to prevent. The people are apt to contract early marriages. A farmer's son brings home a wife, and then, after some time, the barn is fitted up for the newly married couple: the farmer then finds he cannot do without the barn, and a new house has to be erected for his son, and then he prevails on his father to give him part of the land. The landlord of course sets his face against the measure ”

“ The ordinary arrangement of share tenancy under which the negro in the cotton belt now works 67 provides that the landowner shall furnish a cabin in which the family may live and an acre or two for a garden. In addition, working stock, implements, and seed are supplied by the owner of the land. Both tenant and owner share the cost of fertilizers if any are used, and divide equally the expenses of preparing the crop for market and the proceeds of the sale. This arrangement means, of course, that the capitalist takes the laborer into a real partnership. ”

“ Whatever contributes to production is entitled to an equitable share in the distribution. In the production of a loaf of bread (the example which you set forth in a magnificent paragraph) , the plough performs an important, if not indispensable service, and equitably comes in for a share of the loaf. Is that share to be a slice which compensates only for the wear and tear? It seems to me that it should be slightly thicker, even if no more than "the ninth part of a hair." For suppose one man spends his life in making ploughs to be used by others who sow and harvest wheat. ”

“ They meet, and having decided upon the portion of land to be put under green crop next year, they divide it into shares according to the number of tenants in the place, and the number of shares in the soil they respectively possess. Thereupon they cast lots, and the share which falls to a tenant he retains for three years. A third of the land under cultivation is thus divided every year. Accordingly the whole cultivated land of the townland undergoes revision every three years. Should a man get a bad share he is allowed to choose his share in the next division. ”

“ Since her great Revolution, and under the action of the law requiring the equal partition of every man's landed estate among all his children, France has had for the most part the small holding tilled by the owner's own hands, instead of the great estates of the old régime, the average being about 14 acres to each owner, and nearly one fourth of the entire population being proprietors of land either in town or country; in the United States the plough is guided almost wholly by the man who owns the soil he tills ”

“ In England the father cannot always insure the occupancy of the farm to the son, at least he can very rarely improve it with the certainty that he will not thereby entail an additional rent upon himself and the child who succeeds him; but the case is different abroad; there the settler is improving not his landlord's farm, but his own estate. And is there not something grand, is there not something encouraging to the settler in the reflection that his posterity will be benefited by this investment of his capital—this exertion of his industry. ”

“ If, in consequence of an increase in his household, the tenant becomes ten times as strong as the proprietor, he will produce ten times as much. Would the proprietor in such a case be justified in raising the farm-rent tenfold? His right is not, The more you produce, the more I demand. It is, The more I sacrifice, the more I demand. The increase in the tenant’s household, the number of hands at his disposal, the resources of his industry,—all these serve to increase production, but bear no relation to the proprietor. ”

“ Every day things became worse. The ploughman got into debt through trying to procure a little wine to save his wife's life, and when rent-day came round he had not enough money to pay. Just as things arrived at this state, the clock ran down, and Pet, who had taken care to put it in her pocket that morning along with the key, suddenly found her own self standing alone in the field, watching the poor ploughman following his plough, exactly as she had at first beheld him. ”

“ I greatly desire, as already stated, that my family shall remain as it now is, without change or modification or sale or valuation of the furniture or slaves until the said division of my estate, and that it shall until then be supported by the brick-kiln business, as though I were living; and as I believe the squares and lots of ground owned by my brother George and myself is now and will continue to increase in value, I desire, if possible, that said land may be kept unsold and undivided until as above stated, as it will thus be greatly to the advantage of my family ”

“ Of course, this purchase of the right of the home company necessitated a new organization, and a redistribution of property at Plymouth. After mature deliberation, it was decided to erect a commonwealth, in which each settler should own a share, but under an agreement that trade should be managed as before until the total discharge of the debt incurred for liberty. [548]
The division was at once made of the stock and land heretofore the joint estate of the adventurers and their partners in the soil. Every man had a share ”

“ Share tenancy assumes various forms. In some sections a rough understanding grew up that, in the division of a crop, one-third was to be allotted to the land, one-third to live stock, seed, and tools, and one-third to labor. If the tenant brought nothing but his bare hands, he received only the share supposed to be due to labor ”

“ Here consolidation of plots had proceeded noticeably. There are several plots of considerable size held by a single tenant.
The advantage of consolidated holdings are considerable. In the first place, the turf boundaries between the strips could be plowed up, or the direction of the plowing itself could be changed, if enough strips were thrown together. Fitzherbert advises the farmer who has a number of strips lying side by side and who
hath no dung nor shepe to compost nor dung his land withall. ”

“ BORRIS, March 3d.—After a stroll on the lawn this morning, the wide and glorious prospect bathed in the light of a really soft spring day, I had a conversation with Mr. Kavanagh about the Land Corporation, of which he is the guiding spirit. This is a defensive organisation of the Irish landlords against the Land League. When a landlord has been driven into [pg 167] evicting his tenants, the next step, in the “war against landlordism,” is to prevent other tenants from taking the vacated lands and cultivating them. ”

“ The share system has been the one generally adopted, because the blacks greatly affected quasi-proprietorship of the soil, and because the owners were inexperienced in the management of free labor, and not inclined to come personally in contact with it. The share varies in different localities, but usually one-third to half the crop goes to the laborers, the landlords furnishing the necessary tools. ”

“ Besides, they find fault with his ho, and gee, and wo, when ploughing. 'He speaks to the horse,' they say, 'and they gang—and there's something no canny about the man.' In short, between the prejudices of laziness and superstition, the ploughman leads a sorry life of it;—yet these prejudices are daily abating, under the steady and indulgent management of the proprietor. Indeed, nowhere is improvement in agriculture more necessary. An old-fashioned Zetland plough is a real curiosity. ”

“ After 50 years, when the farmers had acquired assets, there were pure land leases. Landlords preferred to lease their land at will instead of for a term of years to prevent the tenant from depleting the soil with a few richer crops during the last years of his tenancy. The commutation of labor services into a money payment developed into a general commutation of virtually all services. Lords in need of money gladly sold manumissions to their villeins. ”

“ It requires no prophet's eye to discern that the instant the tenant's son got married he would bring his wife home to his father's roof, and that if the energies of the united family did not suffice to cultivate the whole of the forty acres, part would be let at "conacre," that is, for the period of one harvest, to a man with or without a holding of his own. The tendency to bring several families together in one cabin is almost irresistible, and has, as mentioned above, not been wisely and firmly met by proprietors, but taken a mean advantage of to wring money out of tenants. ”

“ He is also to check the amount of seed required by the præpositus for each manor, for under the seneschal there may be several manors.
who arranges the ploughing and the plough teams.
On his appointment he must make himself acquainted with the condition of the manorial ploughs and plough teams. He must see that the land is properly arranged, whether on the three-field or the two-field system. If it be divided into three parts, 180 acres should go to each carucate, viz. 60 acres to be ploughed in winter, 60 in Lent, and 60 in summer for fallow. ”

“ Possibly Northampton, Derby and parts of Lincoln really are ‘over-teamed’: that is to say, were the land of these counties to come to the hands of lords who held large and compact estates, the number of plough-teams would be reduced. Where there is freedom there will be some waste. The tenements split into fractions, and the owner of a small piece must keep oxen enough to draw a plough or trust to the friendliness and reciprocal needs of his neighbours. Manorialism has this advantage: it can make the most of the ox. ”

“ The common ploughman has committed to his trust property which, on a very moderate computation, may be valued at £100. This property, of a nature so likely to receive injury from carelessness and inattention, is daily in his hands, and under his charge, and at his mercy. We need scarcely add, too, how deeply he may in other respects injure his employer, as, for instance, by the imperfect ploughing or careless sowing of a field. To what common servant, in any sphere of life, is property so valuable so exclusively intrusted? ”

“ In the second form of share rent, the interests 25 of landlord and tenant are more nearly mutual. Under this system, animal husbandry is possible, which, generally, involves pasturing and feeding a considerable part of the crops upon the farm, and even the purchase of nitrogenous by-products. All this leads to permanency of tenant, since the landlord and tenant are both interested in the live stock and other personal property, which cannot be divided, with economy, each year. It is interesting to note that the house is the least likely to be kept in repair. ”

“ The holdings are too small, and the means of the proprietors too scanty, to enable them to use labour-saving machines, or to avail themselves of the vast advantages of combined labour. How can the present proprietor of a farm of five or ten acres in France or Belgium, afford a reaper, a threshing-machine, a three-horse plough, or even any plough at all? The spade, the wheel-barrow, the donkey, and the flail, must do his work, at a wasteful cost of time and toil. ”

“ The commoners are often “stinted,” restricted [426] that is in the number of beasts which they may put upon the pasture, because rights of grazing have to be distributed among all the arable holdings, such holdings being unworkable without them. Rights of common are often apportioned among the tenants “according to the magnitude of their holdings,” for, of course, a large holding will need more plough beasts, and therefore more pasture, than a small one. ”

“ It has just been said that perfected ploughs rapidly spread in South Russia, and in many cases the village communities were instrumental in spreading their use. A plough was bought by the community, experimented upon on a portion of the communal land, and the necessary improvements were indicated to the makers, whom the communes often aided in starting the manufacture of cheap ploughs as a village industry. ”

“ The system of landholding in the most ancient races was COMMUNAL. That word, and its derivative, COMMUNISM, has latterly had a bad odor. Yet all the most important public works are communal. All joint-stock companies, whether for banking, trading, or extensive works, are communes. They hold property in common, and merge individual in general rights. The possession of land by communes or companies is gradually extending, and it is by no means improbable that the ideas which governed very remote times may, like the communal joint-stock system, be applied more extensively to landholding. ”

“ The co-tenants are all opposed to such subdivision of a share by one of their number, and practically no sub-division has taken place. Their families, therefore, as they grow up, are sent out to shift for themselves. Some of the children find employment at home,—some emigrate to the colonies.’” [90]
Of course it is not maintained that this is the most profitable way for the proprietor to let his lands; it is not at all improbable that by adopting the large-farm system, his rent might be considerably increased ”

“ It is, as he explains, an unhealthy system, unsound both economically and socially,—this dual ownership, which turns the landlord and tenant into co-proprietors of the soil. It paralyses agriculture by preventing the investment of capital on either side, and by destroying all interest of either landlord or tenant in the good farming of the land. ”