The annual (which can mean nothing else than the average) excess of importation and exportation,' says he, p. 11, according to Mr. Mackie's tables, during nine years, ending with 1793, was only 36,893 quarters.' On turning to the authority cited in this quotation, we find that the average excess of importation during those nine years, as struck by Mr. Mackie, amounted to 564,185 quarters; which is nearly twenty times as much as Mr. H. has been pleased to make it. It may be farther observed that, in a case like the present, where the progression from one state of things to another is regularly accelerating as it goes along, no adequate idea can be abtained of the effects that may be expected to result from it by taking a mean average of the whole. This information can only be procured by comparing the rapidity of its progress at different periods, in order that the ratio of its increased velocity may be ascertained. With this view, we divided these nine years into three periods of three years each; and, having struck an average of the actual excess of importation that took place during each of these periods, we found that its progress was regularly increasing with a rapidity even greater than that of a geometrical ratio: as appears from the following table; in the first column of which is put down the average excess of importation, as it did actually take place during the periods indicated; and in the last column the first average is assumed as the lowest term of a series increasing in an exact geometrical ratio. Average excess of importation in the years Ditto during the years 1788, 89, and 90 quarters. quarters. 225,794225,794 304,873 451,583 1,095,555 | 903,176 From this simple statement, we find that the progress has been as regular nearly in the one case as in the other, but that the actual augmentation has exceeded the geometrical ratio by more than 192,379 quarters on the last term. Hence we have reason to conclude that, in future periods, if no circumstances shall occur to interrupt this progress, the deficiency will not amount to 36,893 quarters only per annum, as Mr. H. has chosen to represent it, but to considerably more than 1,265,015 quarters, which was the actual deficiency experienced in the year 1793. If, as Mr. H. contends, the deficiency of grain which has been so regularly increasing is to be chiefly attributed to the proportionate augmentation of the numbers of our people, what an an astonishing idea does this give of the rapidity with which our population is extending! Dr. Franklin represents the population in the American States as doubling itself in 25 years, which is much more than ever was known to take place elsewhere: but in Great Britain we have seen that, according to Mr. H.'s argument, the population is more than doubled every three years!!! At this rate, our little island must contain, in half a century, more people than are at present on the globe: but where food will be procured to sustain them, it requires more ingenuity than we possess to discover. We might here close our remarks on this desultory composition; and were we to take nothing into consideration but the case of the author himself, they should here be closed: but, when we consider the importance of the subject as respecting the community at large, and the benefits that may be derived from forming just ideas of it, or the hurt that may accrue from erroneous notions at the present time, we shall hope to be pardoned for making some additional observations. We are so far from agreeing with Mr. Howlett in his representation of the late rapid progress of agriculture in England, especially in regard to the production of corn, that we are convinced that we shall have no difficulty in adducing satisfactory proofs that the agriculture of this country labours under depressing circumstances, which keep it more nearly stationary than perhaps any other business that can be named; and that, in particular, the production of grain is on the decrease rather than the increase, and must continue to be so as long as the prevailing ideas on the subject shall be retained. Mr. H. seems to be well acquainted with the agricultural surveys of the different counties, made by order of the Board of Agriculture. From these reports, if he has read them with an ordinary degree of attention, he must have learnt, first, that the greatest part of the lands of England and Wales are occupied by tenants at will, who may be ejected on a notice of six months whenever the landlord shall so incline. If this be a fact that cannot be denied, does it not afford evidence incontrovertible, that, even were men in these circumstances left at perfect liberty to carry on their operations without any restraint, they could not possibly enter into any spirited plan of improvements in agriculture, especially in the line of tillage and the production of grain? for improvements of that sort require such an expenditure of capital, and so long a time before it can be returned, that no one but a madman would think of laying out his money on a tenure so insecure. The utmost that such tenants can do, then, is to jog on as before, without once tionary. tempting improvements. They must remain, at the best, sta tionary. Secondly, as a farther bar to the extended culture of corn, he will find, by consulting the same authorities, that it is a general covenant in all such leases that no grass land is on any account to be converted into tillage by the tenant: but should the tenant, by indolence, accident, or design, allow any part of his corn fields to be converted into meadow, these must be, from that moment, entirely abstracted from tillage. In this way, then, the quantity of corn produced may be easily diminished, but it cannot possibly be augmented.-Thirdly, from the same authorities, he will find, that the drawing of tithes in kind is universally felt as a heavy deduction from the produce of a corn fam; to get rid of which, combined with other economical considerations similar to those at which we have hinted above, many extensive tracts in most of the counties of England have been abandoned by the plough, and converted into grass land; the tithe of which is a mere trifle, in most cases, compared to a corn tithe. From these causes, operating with some others which we shall not stop to enumerate, Mr. H. will find that the complaints of the decrease of arable lands are repeated in many of these surveys, as a serious growing evil that ought to be remedied; so that, when these things are considered, the rapid increase of the importation of grain into this country, above stated, cannot appear in the least degree surprising. Fortunately, indeed, there are still remaining some agricultural counties in England, in which the plough continues to be the favourite employment of the people, and in which the indolent and depopulating spirit of grass farming has scarcely obtained a footing. The same may be said of Scotland in general; where the circumstances which we have mentioned as the strongest bars to the cultivation of land in England do not take place; and where, therefore, as also from the continued demand to supply the deficiency of corn in England, agriculture has indeed been recently pushed forwards with increasing vigour*.. In consequence of the supplies thence obtained, the necessity of importing foreign grain into England (great as these imports are) has no doubt been considerably diminished. It is of much importance that this spirit for tillage, wherever it exists, should be kept up as long as possible by every reasonable indulgence; for it has been found by experience, that, wherever the more indolent and lucrative spirit of grass farming has been established, it is extremely difficult to rouse the As appears particularly from the agricultural accounts of Berwickshire, East-Lothian, Mid-Lothian, Forfarshire, and Carse of Gowrie. farmers farmers from their torpor, and to induce them to enter with energy into the more laborious operations of active agriculture. Indeed it becomes nearly impossible; as the hands that would be required to cultivate the soil, having been driven away when it was laid into grass, are no longer to be found. So far, however, are the rulers of this kingdom, and men of property in general, from viewing this subject in the light in which we have put it, that they seem to vie with each other in discouraging the efforts of the farmer. The corn laws, we have no hesitation in saying, are calculated strongly to produce this effect. Landed gentlemen, by withholding leases entirely, or by granting short leases clogged with many injudicious restrictive clauses, most powerfully co-operate towards the same end. The tithe owners, by declining to accept any legal compensation for their tithe, goad on the farmers to pursue the same course. We might believe, from their conduct, that every one of these classes of men considered the growing of corn as the most baneful practice that could be pursued, and had therefore entered into a combination to exterminate it as a business. What benefit they can hope to derive from this, it is difficult to say: but that they have succeeded in effecting their purpose, Mr. Howlett himself affords the most satisfactory proof, by bringing forwards a strong fact which he adduces with a view directly the reverse of what it will be found incontestibly to prove. Has the advance of rents, rates, tithes, taxes, &c. (Mr. H. asks, p. 8.) been equivalent [to the rise in the price of carn, &c.]? That it has not, I appeal to the numerous estates purchased by the farmers. I could point out twenty instances of persons within fifteen miles of this place, who, from an original capital of 1000 or 1500l. have, within the period mentioned (since the year 1750), bought farms of from 50 to 2001. a-year, and even considerably more.' From this fact, thus stated, it is evident that Mr. Howlett thinks that it indicates a very unusual degree of prosperity indeed, if, in the line of agriculture, a man who sets out with a capital of from 1000 to 1500 1. shall be able to purchase, during the course of his life, a landed estate worth from 50 to 200l. a-year. Now, we beg leave to ask Mr. H. whether he can name another honest mercantile, manufacturing, oreven mechanical profession, in which it would be reckoned extraordinary if a man, who commenced business with a capital of 1000 or 1500l. should realise during his life an estate of 2001. a year? We are inclined to believe that, in most other kinds of business, a man who had such a capital at the beginning, and was attentive and industrious in an ordi*nary degree, would be deemed unfortunate if he did not realise before his death four times the sum above specified, though he had lived always much more splendidly than the farmer; nor would it be noticed as extraordinary if his gains amounted to forty times that sum. The writer of this article could specify a greater number of individuals of his acquaintance than Mr. H. has done, who began business with a capital less than onetenth of that of the farmers above mentioned, and who are now worth from 10 to 20,000l. a year: and some, who began the world with nothing, who are worth more than double the last named sum;--and all this in a fair open business, without any extraordinary incidents. If such facts as are here mentioned be not uncommon in other branches of business carried on in this country, could Mr. Howlett ever have stated as an extraordinary event the acquisition of an estate of 2001. a-year by a farmer, unless that business had been depressed far below the level of other occupations which require the same amount of capital? That nothing may be left wanting in proof of the truth of this position, Mr. H. thus proceeds: I contemplate these facts with high satisfaction. The labours of no order of men are more deserving of such rewards. Base and mean would be the landlords, or the tithemen, who should take advantage of this to raise their rents or their tithe to an undue height, or so as to prove an insuperable impediment in the way of such spirited and successful industry. The latter indeed, whether clerical or lay, can do but little. Their boundaries are fixed and narrow, and they cannot go beyond them; but the former have no other limits than individual wisdom and discretion, which may sometimes be greatly deficient, and finally prove injurious to themselves and their tenants.' Thus does Mr. Howlett totally set aside, with a few touches of his pen, all his panegyrics on the prosperity of our farmers and the flourishing state of our agriculture: for no man of common sense will ever believe that a dependant creature, who is thus overawed by others during the whole of his life, can go for. wards in business with an ordinary degree of energy or spirit. Our author, however, without adverting to these facts and considerations, not only asserts that our agriculture is gaining on the grazing system, but even ventures to state a fact in proof, which tends directly to manifest the reverse of his proposition. But (says he, p. 33.) whatever may have been the fact in particular places, it is incontestably certain that, in a general and national view, our agriculture must have been predominant over our feeding, grazing, and dairying. This is evident from this consideration, that the price of our beef and pork, butter and cheese, has encreased more than the price of our corn.' This is nearly the same as if he had said that the best way of encou |