The equal division of lands, no doubt, greatly tends to increase the numbers of one class of inhabitants, to wit, the landlords. In antient times, as has been observed, the chief attention was to increase the citizens, that is the higher classes of the state; and the equal division of property so effectually produced this effect, that the Greek states were obliged to allow the exposition of children; and Aristotle looked upon it as a thing indispensably necessary, as M. de Montesquieu has very judiciously observed. The multiplication of the lowest classes, that is of the slaves, never entered into the consideration of the public, but remained purely a matter of private concern; and we find it was a question with some, whether or not it was worth while to breed from them at all. But in our days the principal object is to support the lower classes from their own multiplication, and for this purpose, an unequal division of property seems to me the more favourable scheme; because the wealth of the rich falls naturally into the pockets of the industrious poor; whereas the produce of a very middling fortune, does no more than feed the children of the proprietor, who in course become very commonly and very naturally an useless burthen upon the land. Let me apply this to an example. Do we not familiarly observe, that the consolidation of small estates, and the diminution of gentlemens families of middling fortunes, do little harm to a modern state. There are always abundance of this class of inhabitants to be found whenever there is occasion for them. When a great man buys up the lands of the neighbouring gentry, or small proprietors, all the complaints which are heard, turn upon the distress which thence result to the lower classes, from the loss of their masters and protectors; but never one word is heard of that made by the state, from the extinction of the former proprietor’s family. This abundantly shews that the object of modern attention is the multiplication of the lower classes, consequently it must be an inconsistency to adopt the practice of the antients, when our oeconomy is entirely opposite to theirs. [Sidenote: QUEST. II.] Let this suffice to point out how far the difference of our manners should influence the division of our lands. I shall now examine a question relative to the science of agriculture, not considered as a method of improving the soil, (this will come in more naturally afterwards) but of making it produce to the best advantage, supposing it to be already improved.