Many high authorities are fully convinced that the improvement of the cultivated portion of the land, and even of the rents of the proprietors, may be equally well effected by the _petite culture_, by keeping the cottars in their places, and merely giving them instruction as to cultivation, and security for a fair share of the profits of the improvements they effect--as by clearing the land of them, and enlarging the farms. All who have studied the subject, seem to be agreed as to the very general "almost superhuman" industry of peasant _proprietors_, in all parts of the world, and among all races of men. "The idea of property, however," says Mr Mill, "does not necessarily imply that there should be no rent, any more than that there should be no taxes. It merely implies, that the rent should be a fixed charge, not liable to be raised against the possessor by his own improvements, or by the will of a landlord." "Give a man a secure possession of a bleak rock," says Arthur Young, "and he will turn it into a garden; give him only a nine-years' lease of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert." It is accordingly stated by this author, and by others, as the result of experience, that long leases, at a low rent, will effect wonders, even in Ireland; and in proof of this, Mr Mill refers to the example of a company, called the Irish Waste Land Improvement Society, who have undertaken improvements in Ireland, not by creating large farms, and cultivating them by hind labour, but by farms only of a size sufficient for a single family--giving, however, small advances of capital, and a temporary security of tenure by thirty-one years' leases. Col. Robinson, the manager of this Society, reports of their operations in 1845,--"These 245 tenants and their families have, by spade husbandry, reclaimed and brought into cultivation 1032 acres of land, previously unproductive waste, on which they raised, last year, crops valued at £3896, being the proportion of £15, 18s. each tenant; and their live stock, now on the estates, is valued, according to present prices in the neighbouring markets, at £4162, being at the rate of £16, 19s. for each--£1304, a sum equal to their present annual rent, having been added since February 1844;" and he adds, "By the statistical tables and returns, it is proved that the tenants, in general, improve their little farms, and increase their cultivation and crops, in _nearly direct proportion to the number of available working persons_ of both sexes of which their families consist." The occupants of larger farms than 20 acres, he states to be "a class too often deficient in the enduring industry indispensable for the successful prosecution of mountain improvements."[6] Mr Mill's general conclusion is, that "under the new Irish Poor-Law there are no means for the landlords for escaping ruin," (as has been stated above,) "unless, by some potent stimulant to the industrial energies of the people, they can largely