"Mark this," he continued, "a strife has set in, and is growing in acrimony, between the larger and smaller landowners. Some, like me, favour the system of large holdings, because they seem more in accord with science and progress, with the increased use of machinery, and the circulation of large sums of money. Others, on the contrary, only believe in individual effort, and praise the system of small holdings; dreaming of cultivation on the most minute scale; a system in which every one would produce his own manure, look after his own quarter of an acre, sort out his seeds one by one, allotting the required soil to each kind, and then raise each plant by itself under glass. Which of the two will get the upper hand? Hang me if I've any idea! I am well aware, as I told you just now, that every year large ruined farms are dropping to pieces in my neighbourhood, and falling into the hands of gangs, and that the system of small holdings is gaining ground. I know, moreover, at Rognes, a very curious instance of an old woman who derives quite a comfortable subsistence for herself and her husband from less than an acre of land. They nickname her Mother Caca, because she doesn't shrink from emptying the contents of her own and her husband's chamber vase on to her vegetables, as is the custom of the Chinese, so it would seem. But that is hardly better than gardening. I can't picture cereals growing in beds like turnips; and if, for a peasant to be independent, he produced something of everything, what would become of our Beaucerons--who have only their wheat to rely upon--when our Beauce has been cut up like a chess-board? However, if one lives long enough, one will see which will triumph in the future--the system of large holdings or that of small ones."
At this point he broke off and shouted: "Are we going to have that coffee to-day or to-morrow?"
Then, lighting his pipe, he resumed: "Unless both be killed at once, and that's what folks are in a fair way of doing. Mark this, agriculture is on its last legs, and will die if some one doesn't come to its assistance. Everything is crushing it down--taxes, foreign competition, the continued rise in the cost of manual labour, the drain of money which goes to manufacturing undertakings, and stocks and shares. To be sure, there are no end of promises abroad. Every one is lavish of them--the prefects, the ministers, the Emperor. But the dust rises on the roads, and nothing is seen coming. Shall I tell you the strict truth? Now-a-days, a cultivator who holds on either wastes his own money or other people's. It's all right for me, because I have a few coppers laid by. But I know people who borrow money at five per cent., while their land does not yield them so much as three. The collapse is fatally ahead. A peasant who borrows is a ruined man. He will infallibly be stripped of everything--to his last shirt.