FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 December 1916, Page 2

FARM AND DAIRY.

THE .FREEHOLD IN FRANCE. Jn a recent article on "Rural France," Sir Herbert Matthews has some interesting comments on the freehold in France. Sir Herbert Matthews visited rural France in September as representative of an English committee which is collecting money from agriculturists to help the small French farmers in the war area. He went as a member of a deputation in which there were a number of colonial representatives. On the subject of the freehold he says: 'ln discussions on agricultural matters 'the magic of ownership' is often spoken of; but one does not fully realise the true force of that magic until it is brought home by the abnormal conditions obtaining in France to-day. These peasant farmers mostly own the land they til!, and they cling with pathetic attachment to it under most trying circumstances. With their buildings/ falling about their ears, in roofless houses, with some or all of their implements destroyed, soldiers swarming all over the place, with their whole world turned upside down, they yet endeavor to continue their ordinary work; to feed their stock (if any are left),.or to harvest their crops, though lacking strong arms for such heavy work. Within the range of shell fire they are laboring in the fields, with a blind confidence in the future. What other form of land tenure would produce such continuity of effort, such devotion to work, such disregard of rißk? In the Marne district, as in many other parts of France, the Morcelle system is th© custom. This means that the land is compulsorily divided among the children at death, and this, has, in source- of time, produced some inconveniences. For instance, excessive subdivision may so reduce the area ownd by an individual that he cannot make a living from it. Or again, it may involve ownership of half-a-dozen narrow strips at soma distance apart, yet aggregating only 20 or 30 acres. It fe, in fact, a survival in a peculiar form of the condition frequently found in England before the ad.vantages of enclosure became generally appreciated, and as practised in France is the cause of n good deal of wasted effort and uneconomic methods. The Legislature might early remove these anomalies, but it is easy to understand any hesitation on the part of the French Department of Agriculture to interfere with a system which has produced such sturdy stock as the French peasantry.