presumed to be under cultivation, and above half that quantity of acres in the vicinage of the manufactories, with the necessaries of life dearer than in any other district. I would ask any one acquainted with the state of cultivation in that county, whether the produce on an average might not be advanced five pounds per acre by a better mode of husbandry and attention to the soil. If I am correct, and I believe the only error will be in taking the estimate too low, there is two millions and a half of produce annually lost to the community. In stating the gains made by the manufactories this ought to be deducted. I lament the opportunity was lost of making great and important improvements in this county, I mean during the recent suspension of their works. It would have been both good policy as well as gain to the parishes had they applied to the landed proprietors to employ the people, and as a temptation to do it, paid a part of their wages out of the poor-rates-there would ultimately have been a saving to the parishes: and what improvements might not have been made, at once beneficial to the individual, the parish, and the public, and the disgraceful scenes prevented which ensued. How frequently does it happen that our misfortunes under wise and prudent government may be turned to a source of profit!

The increase of wealth operating on a decreasing supply of corn, has greatly tended to aid in raising the price of labour, to the injury of agriculture. The reduction of the price of labour cannot be effected, without a general abatement of all the objects which have been

I 4

been influenced by it. The only means of preventing the ruin of our agriculture is to advance the price of grain. The same causes have not yet operated in the North of Europe and America; where they are besides, exempted from our heavy taxation, which exacts so much from each individual, and appears an almost invincible barrier to our receding. These combined causes enable the North of Europe and America to furnish grain cheaper than we can grow it extensively. There are indeed many millions of acres in Great Britain that would produce wheat, were the price sufficient; but on which it will never be grown while foreign grain can be imported as heretofore. And I still doubt of the average being taken too low to produce any considerable change.

The situation to which the country is reduced, calls for the adoption of efficient measures to rescue it from the distressed state into which it has been thrown by the predominance of commerce over agriculture. Every step we advance, the difficulty will be greater. Remedies are never pleasant; when necessary however, they should be adopted.

Grain, the prime necessary of life, must be had; and, if it cannot be grown at the prices hitherto paid, it is sound policy to advance them to what will stimulate the production of a quantity equal to our wants.

To accomplish this object, should it even be the means of a diminution in our manufactures, the nation would be no loser by it. Our supplying foreign countries with manufactured articles depends upon a variety of circumstances. Our demand and consump

tion of grain is certain. One may cease; the other cannot be dispensed with but by a diminution of our population. Could a more serious misfortune befall the country than to be driven to such an alternative?

Allowing the prices of grain were such as to make it the interest of the farmer to grow corn extensively, in preference to grazing, or fully on a par with it; can it be doubted that we should shortly be enabled to raise a sufficiency for our consumption? The profits of tillage once fully established would speedily effect a total revolution in the existing system of agriculture. When no longer the interest of the farmer to make use of every possible means of expeditiously turning his lands into grass, expedients would be as assiduously devised for continuing the lands in a fit state for crop. ping. And I conceive this to be practicable, without injury to the land, or reduction of crops; for which we have not only the example of China, but the partial practice of different places in this kingdom. There are lands in the neighbourhood of London, which have been cropped with potatoes for forty years without interruption. The alternate culture of wheat and beans is practised in many districts without variation.

The advances in the prices of grain have saved the country; at the commencement of this war great im→ portations were necessary; we are now in tolerable years in a state to supply ourselves, and the quantity of grain grown in Great Britain and Ireland annually increasing to a great amount, arising not only from large and most extensive enclosures of wastes, but

from

from an improved system of cultivation, which bids fair to double the produce in a very short period.

I would not be considered as an advocate for the advance of grain beyond what would afford the grower a full, fair, and adequate return for his capital and exertions; which I do contend has not been the case in the last ten years (prior to the alterations made in the corn laws), with the exception of those of scarcity.

It is a matter of some curiosity to trace the price of wheat from the earliest times. The prices tend to shew the progress of improvement.

PRICE OF WHEAT AT DIFFERENT PERIODS.

As nearly as can be conjectured, the mean price of wheat from the year 1000 to 1066 (the time of the Norman Invasion) was 1s. 6d. per quarter. From the latter period, to the first year of the reign of King John, 1199, the mean price of wheat was 3s. 1d. per quarter. In 1244, wheat was 6s. 21d. per quarter, and two years after 21. 9s. 7d. The mean price of wheat during the next period, viz. from 1307 to the Declaration of War against France by Henry V. in 1418, was 158. But though the mean price is less in this than in the former periods, yet from 1314 to 1316, it was sold at 31. 1s. 2d. per quarter; in 1317, at 6l. 14s. 7d. These excessive prices of wheat caused great mortality, and certainly indicate bad husbandry--but it would appear that something had been done with respect to tillage very soon after, for in the year 1919, the importation of corn was prohibited, unless the price of

wheat

wheat exceeded 19s. 10d. per quarter at the port where the same should be landed. In 1349, wheat sold at 5s. 6d. per quarter; this remarkable fall was occasioned by a dreadful pestilence which swept away nearly one-third of all the people in Europe. From 1418 to 1524, the mean price of wheat was 11s. 3d.5 and from 1524 to 1604, 15s.; though in the year 1573 wheat rose from 11. 4s. 9d. to 2l. 17s. 8d. per quarter. During the whole reign of James I. the mean price of wheat was 17. 12s. 34d. During the whole reign of Charles I. corn was very dear, chiefly owing to the great plenty of money.

The adoption of measures for creating an advance of price might appear an evil, so long as grain could be had from foreign countries at a cheaper rate. But the miseries which must and would ultimately result from an increasing dependence on foreign nations would infinitely outweigh any present advantage. And besides, it admits of considerable doubt (taking the average of a few years back), whether it would not have been cheaper both to the nation and individuals, had measures, like the present, been taken some years ago, to advance the price, and thereby to encourage the growth of grain at home.

At the moment of writing the above observations, it was far from my contemplation to suspect that such a fatal combination of circumstances would arise, as should threaten the total deprivation of our resources drawn from the Baltic. The event, however, has happened; and we cannot but clearly perceive, that

the