another sure criterion, a rise in the price of land. Increased 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 remained 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 nobleman 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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