CHAP. VIII.
What Proportion of Inhabitants is necessary for Agriculture, and what Proportion may be usefully employed in every other Occupation?
I have proposed this question, not with an intention to answer it fully, but to point out how, with the proper lights given, it may be answered.
As I write under circumstances not the most favourable for having recourse to books, I must employ those I have. The article Political Arithmetic, of Mr. Chambers’s Cyclopedia, furnishes me with some extracts from Sir William Petty, and Dr. Davenant, which I here intend to employ, towards pointing out a solution of the question proposed. These authors consider the state of England as it appeared to them, and what they say is conclusive only with respect to that state.
Sir William Petty supposes the inhabitants of England to be six millions, the value of grain yearly consumed by them ten millions sterling, the bushel of wheat reckoned at 5s. and that of barley at 2s. 6d. If we cast the two together, and reckon upon an average, this will make the quarter, or eight bushels of grain, worth 1l. 10s. but in regard, the barley cannot amount to one half of all the grain consumed, especially as there is a good quantity of rye made use of, which is worth more than the barley, though less than the wheat; let us suppose the grain worth 32s. per quarter, at a medium; then ten millions sterling will purchase six millions of quarters of grain, or thereabouts: which used for nourishment, in bread and beer, gives the mean quantity of one quarter, or 512 pounds of grain for every inhabitant, including the nourishment of his proportional part of animals; supposing that Sir William attended to this circumstance, for it is not mentioned by Chambers. And I must observe, by the by, that this computation may hold good as to England, where people eat so little bread; but would not answer in France, nor in almost any other country I have seen.
Dr. Davenant, correcting Sir William’s calculation, makes the inhabitants 5,545,000. These, according to Sir William’s prices and proportions, would consume to the amount of 8,872,000l. sterling; but the Dr. carries it, with reason, a little higher, and states it at 9,075,000l. sterling; the difference, however, is inconsiderable. From this he concludes, the gross produce of the corn fields to be about 9,075,000l. sterling. I make no criticism upon this computation.
Next, as to the value of other lands; I find Sir William reckons the gross produce of them in butter, cheese, milk, wool, horses yearly bred, flesh for food, tallow, hides, hay, and timber, to amount to 12,000,000l. sterling: The amount therefore of the gross produce of all the lands in England must be equal to these two sums added together, that is to 21,075,000l. sterling.
From these data, the Dr. values the yearly rent of corn lands at two millions sterling, and those of pasture, &c. at seven millions, in all nine millions.
From this it appears, that the land rents of England are to the gross produce, as nine is to twenty one, or thereabouts.
Let me now examine some other proportions.