This I do not consider as a species of farming. It is more properly, in a political light, a sort of village life, only the village here appears dispersed over a large extent; and I call it a village life, because here the occupation of the inhabitants is principally directed towards the prosecution of their trades: agriculture is but a subaltern consideration, and will be carried on so far only, as it occasions no great avocation from the main object. It will however have the effect to parcel out the lands into small possessions: a system admirably calculated for the improvement of the soil, and advantageous to population, when the spirit of industry is not thereby checked. This is not the case when such possessors apply totally to agriculture, and content themselves with a bare subsistence from it, without prosecuting any other branch of industry, or forming any plan of ambition for themselves, or for their children’s emerging from so circumscribed a sphere of life: from this alone proceeds, in most countries, the inconveniency of a minute subdivision of land property. We shall presently see, by various examples, the truth of this proposition; and from what observations I have been able to make, it appears, that a great inconvenience flows from it; the _property_ of the lands, and not the _bare possession_ of them, is vested in the lower classes. While they only remain as tenants, the interest of the proprietor, on one hand, will lead him to incorporate these small possessions into larger farms, the moment the possessors, by relaxing from their principal occupation, (industry) are no longer able to pay a rent above the value of the grounds when let in farms; and the interest of these tenants, on the other hand, will frequently lead them to abandon such small possessions, when the prosecution of their industry demands a change of habitation. Thus the interest of agriculture will go hand in hand with that of industry, and classes will separate their habitations, according as their respective interests require. It is certainly the interest of every landlord, whose land is ill improved, to multiply habitations upon it, providing he makes choice of such people as can live by some other branch of industry than bare agriculture: and, in many cases, it may be his advantage to incorporate his lands into farms as soon as they are fully cultivated. By this plan he will advance the improvement of his land; he will multiply the useful inhabitants; and he will at the same time share the profits of their industry beyond the value of the land rent. By these means has the woollen manufacture in England, and the linen in Ireland and Scotland been greatly augmented. But as the improvement of land goes on, this oeconomy will decline: towns will swell in consequence of the principles we are now going to deduce; the lands will become more thinly inhabited; and farms will by degrees grow more extensive. I appeal to experience for the justness of this opinion.