It is in the nature of things, that the husbandman is able to pay a far higher rent for a piece of land, than we could, who do not till it ourselves, provided, however, that no capital is needed for it. We have to pay the labourer, whereas the other gets the double gain of the labourer and of the farmer. I know the farming in Italy well, having taken much trouble to become acquainted with all kinds of land-owners and farmers there, particularly with the larger ones, who understand husbandry very well. The latter manage their farms in an excellent style, and yet they are a curse to the country: on the other hand, I quite love the poor peasants. Among others, I knew of a small farmer at Tivoli, who did his very utmost to get himself out of the clutches of the usurers, and to free his bit of ground; on which occasion I fully learnt how great the value of labour is in Italy, and what an advantage it is there for a man to farm his own land. But as the money is in very few hands, only indeed in those of the men of rank, the small proprietor, if any ill luck befalls him, is unable to keep his freehold, and therefore this class of men dwindles faster and faster every year. The poor man, for instance, lived near the rich one; the former in hard times had taxes to pay, but, having had losses owing to murrain among the cattle and other visitations, he could not raise the money: thus he borrowed from his wealthy neighbour, and as he had no other pledge to offer but his farm, he had to pay a heavy rate of interest. Nor was this the whole of his troubles: his son, perhaps, served in a legion, in which case, if the father was taken ill and had to keep labourers, he could not pay the interest; and now, if his neighbour called upon him for the principal and interest, he must needs give up to him the possession of his land at a low price. He who is once in the fangs of the large proprietors, will never get out again. And so Tib. Gracchus found the many small allotments on which the soldiers had settled, either burthened with debt after the long series of disasters during the late campaigns (in which the war-taxes moreover were most heavily felt), or already fallen into the hands of the rich. Such a change of property goes on increasing like an avalanche. In Tivoli, the number of land-owners is now perhaps not a fifth of what it was forty years back, and not one-fiftieth of what it was four hundred years ago; as I have learned from an old survey of the fifteenth century. I made inquiries to know what became of many of the olive-yards there, which (in former times) belonged to certain families in the town, and one by one have been got hold of by the rich. Sonnino[69] has four thousand inhabitants, and some five or six men own the whole of the land: all the rest are beggars and robbers.