another sure criterion, a rise in the price of land. In-
creased activity in business followed the reforms in
the currency of 1726, and an enhancement in the
value of farms seems to have attended it. In 1726,
the average price of agricultural land was estimated
at twenty-five dollars an acre; by 1750, this had risen
to thirty-five dollars. ¹

Notwithstanding the burden of taxation and the
pressure of need, the peasantry during all the century
continued to increase its holdings of the soil. Small
as were the earnings of peasant proprietors, if, by
means of the most rigorous economy, anything re-
mained at the end of the year, it was put one side, and
the only thing that would open the box containing
their hoards was the possibility of acquiring another
bit of land. A thirst, not for gold, but for land, has
been characteristic of the French peasant as far back
as his history can be traced, and opportunities were
not wanting for new purchases. A large proportion
of the nobility were non-residents, their land yielded
them little, and ownership did not of itself bring the
social influence which had so important an effect on
the holding of land in England. The French noble-
man was at court, he was in debt, and he received
small returns from his estates in the provinces. It
is evident, therefore, that it was for the interest of
the gentleman to sell, and the peasant was usually the
only purchaser. Thus, little by little, an acre here
and an acre there, the slow process of accumulation
by the peasantry went on, and it went on with as
much rapidity in the eighteenth century as at any era
of the past.

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