The Soil (La terre): A Realistic Novel

by Émile Zola

"You don't tell me anything about the small holdings."

He set forth the current notions—the small proprietorships created in '89, favoured by the law, destined to regenerate agriculture; in short, everybody a landowner, and each man devoting his intellect and energies to the cultivation of his scrap of land.

"Stuff and nonsense!" declared Hourdequin. "To begin with, the petty landowners existed before '89, and in almost as large a proportion. And in the next place, there's a good deal to be said on both sides about cutting up the soil."

With his elbows again on the table, eating some cherries and spitting out the stones, he now entered into details. In La Beauce the petty landowners, those who inherited less than fifty acres, were in the proportion of eighty per cent. For some time almost all the day labourers—those who worked on the farms—had been buying bits of land, fragments of large demesnes, and cultivating them at odd moments. That was certainly an excellent plan, for the labourer was thus at once bound to the soil. It might be added in favour of the system of petty holdings that it developed worthier, more self-reliant, and better educated men. Finally, it conduced to a comparatively larger yield, the produce also being of better quality; for the owner exerted himself to the utmost, and tended his crop minutely. But how many inconveniences there were on the other hand! First, this superiority in yield and quality was due to excessive work. The parents and children toiled to death in order to live. Indeed, it was this exhausting, ungrateful labour that was finally depopulating the rural districts. Next, with the subdivision of the soil there was increased transport, which spoilt the roads and augmented the cost of production, besides leading to waste of time. It was impossible to employ machinery on the smaller holdings, on which, moreover, the triennial rotation was necessary. This was certainly unscientific, for it was unreasonable to demand two successive crops of cereals, oats, and wheat. In short, extreme subdivision of the soil seemed so surely to portend danger, that, after having encouraged it by law just after the Revolution—for fear of seeing the large domains formed again—the State had now begun to facilitate transfers by diminishing the charges thereon.

"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.

"Only last week one of my neighbours was evicted, the parents and their four children being flung into the street, after the lawyers had robbed them of their live stock, their land, and their house. And yet for years and years people have been promising us the establishment of an agricultural loan-company which would lend money at a reasonable rate of interest. I only wish they may get it! All this disgusts even good workers, who have come to such a pass that they think twice even before getting their wives into the family way. No, thanks! What! another mouth to feed—another starveling born to wretchedness! When there isn't bread enough for all, no more children are born and the nation perishes."

Monsieur de Chédeville, who was quite disconcerted, ventured on an uneasy smile, and murmured: "You don't look on the bright side of things."

"That is true, there are times when I feel inclined to let everything go hang," replied Hourdequin gaily. "And no wonder; these troubles have been going on now for thirty years. I don't know why I have persisted. I ought to have sold everything off, and taken to something else. One reason with me, no doubt, was force of habit; and then there is the hope that things will mend, and then—why not confess it?—a passionate fondness for the occupation. When once this cursed land gets hold of you, it doesn't let go in a hurry. Look here! Look at that ornament on that table. It is foolish of me, perhaps, but when I look at it I feel consoled."