quarters of wheat must be raised, either by increasing to that amount the productivity of our present land in cultivation, or by bringing 330,000 more acres into cultivation, if we nourish them from our own soil; but if we have now ten times this quantity of producible land yet uncultivated, we see that, at this rate, we may go on multiplying, as much as we are now doing, for a hundred years, and still grow corn enough in our own islands to feed them. The rice countries would allow two or three times this quantity of population: so abundant are the means now visible for meeting the largest increase of population to which we have any just occasion to advert. We can reason still more exactly on this point as to our own islands.

acres.*

England contains, in its whole area, about 32,000,000 of Of these, 3,250,000 have been deemed incapable of improvement; and of the remainder, nearly 3,500,000 of acres are in an uncultivated state. Now this quantity of land, if put under efficient tillage for wheat, would, according to the statement we have just reviewed, provide sufficient food of vegetable diet for 10,000,000 more inhabitants in England alone; a number not likely to accrue for forty or fifty years at least, though we should multiply further in our late accelerated ratio.

But if we reason on the amount of land not at present in

"The area of England is 50,387 square statute miles, exclusive of Wales, consequently 32,247,680 acres." The separate enumerations of the contents of each country come to 31,770,615.-Rickm. Enum. Abst., vol. ii., p. 832. Mr. Cowling's calculation makes it 32,342,400 acres. On either calculation, the amount would be nearly 32,000,000 of acres.

† Mr. Cowling, a civil engineer, in 1827, delivered to a Select Committee of the House of Commons his statement on this subject, which he said was the result of his personal examination, having examined 106 of the counties of both islands, and partially visited the other 11. His account was a detail, of which the following is a summary :

Acres unprofitable.

Acres cultivated.

Acres uncultivated,

but improvable.

3,454,000

3,256,400

Wales

3,117,000

Ireland

12,125,280

British Islands

46,522,970

15,000,000

15,871,463

Mr. Porter, in his compendious volume of "The Progress of the Na

tion," has inserted Mr. Cowling's detailed statement, p. 173-177.

husbandry, but which is susceptible of cultivation, in all Great Britain and Ireland, we find that there are no fewer than 15,000,000 of acres in this waste but improvable condition; and, therefore, that we have soil enough yet unused which could be made to provide 45,000,000 more people in our two islands with vegetable food from our own resources. I submit to you, that we may believe that, if such an augmentation should ever take place in our nation, no generations for which we shall have any personal interest will be in being. We have land enough to occupy and feed all that will come for a very long time; and this makes it quite unnecessary for us to speculate on the results which may take place when every acre is in full cultivation.*

Of the land now in cultivation in our islands, about two fifths only are in tillage; the rest are in the grassy state.† Of those which are tilled, a proportion only is in culture every year for wheat. Full as much has been considered to grow oats and beans, and the remainder barley. At present we feed a vast quantity of horses, and each horse is said to require eight times the soil and substance which would supply

*The summary in the preceding note presents the whole land of the British Islands, cultivated, waste, and unprofitable, as amounting to 77,394,433 acres; of which about one fifth only is classed under the useless character. The cultivable contains 61,522,970 acres, which, at three human beings per acre, would feed 184,568,910 individuals. To this amount, then, we may safely multiply.

† Mr. Cowling thus distinguished the ground that is now in cultivation:

19,135,990

27,386,980

Cowling's Progress of the Nation. Arthur Young believed that, in England, there are usually 3,000,000 of acres every year growing wheat, as many producing barley, and as many sowed for oats and beans. Mr. Comber agreed with him as to the first and last of these articles, but thought that there was not so much barley. On this point I am incompetent to judge. Some think that more wheat is now raised; and, as we produce wheat enough for our own use, there must be either more than 3,000,000 of acres planted with it, or each acre must, on an average, yield above three quarters.

food for a man.* This has occasioned some to urge strongly that the steam mechanism should be applied to agriculture, not only that the ground which now provides what they need might be applicable to raise more food for the enlarging population, but also from the diminution of farming expenses which would follow from its adoption. There is such a spirit of enterprise and intelligent ingenuity among our countrymen, that we may expect that all improvements which can be invented and brought to bear usefully on this point will in time occur as our population enlarges, because that increase will bring more acting minds into existence, and stimulate their activity. It is gratifying to perceive that the attempt has already begun and been found practicable.‡

In these facts we may discern a certainty that the adjusting principle between multiplication of population and multiplication of food will act as steadily and as efficaciously hereafter as it has been operating hitherto; and that due provision has really been made that it shall have this effect. We have a further assurance of this result, and further means of procuring it, in the other element of the system of our maintenance; mean, in the very articles which we consume as our food.

Two principles have been pursued by our Creator as to the substances which are to be our support, with an express view

*According to the parliamentary returns in 1728, the horses running in coaches in Great Britain amounted to 178,841; and a writer in the "New Farmers' Journal" of 1st November, 1833, considers that all the horses that are exclusively employed in drays and draughts would, with the coach-horses, amount to 600,000. To these are to be added those which are kept for agriculture and pleasure. "It seems admitted that each horse consumes what will support eight individuals." From this he reasons, that, if out of the whole number, 600,000 should be superseded by steam carriages, their absence would enable corn to be raised for nearly 5,000,000 more people.

† We must not suppose that all the expectations of sanguine calculators will be realized; but it is as well to know them; because they excite experiments which, if not verifying what is promised from them, yet often elicit many new utilities. Thus, "Mr. Brown offers statements to prove that the horses now used in husbandry alone are maintained at an expenditure of 30,000,000l. yearly. He calculates that, in ten years, the profit in favour of a steam-plough over a horse-plough would amount to 7751., even allowing all expenses on its first introduction."-New Farmers' Journal, 1st November, 1833.

Lord Henniker stated, on 8th September, 1937, at the East Suffolk agricultural dinner, that he had received a letter from a friend in Lincolnshire, mentioning that in his neighbourhood they had already a steam plough, which would harrow thirty acres and plough eight acres per day. -Standard, 14th September, 1836.

to our continued multiplication; and these are, that they shall be very numerous, and that their productive system shall have a power of increasing fertility, both from natural agencies and from human cultivation, whose limits of improvability cannot yet be defined. In both these laws we have a security against being famished by augmenting numbers, which we ought never to forget. The food of the animal creation is very simple, commonly some one or two articles only, and rarely extending beyond. But, for mankind, a diversity of edible substances has been created, and many such have been used, and are still, in many countries, the most convenient or preferred food. As it will not be incurious or unuseful to notice what is taking place in the world in this respect, the variety thus provided and applied, and the increasing productive power of some articles, shall be the topic of the ensuing letter, as further elucidating the Divine system in our human life, and the abundant provisions for its comfortable support.

LETTER XXXI.

The Principle of Animal Nutrition is, that it shall arise from what has had Life within it.—Animal and Vegetable Organizations prepare all Human Food.-Facts to show that Mankind can and do Feed on all the Classes of the Animal Kingdom, and find Nutriment from all.

MY DEAR SON,

Having thus seen that there is ground enough still everywhere uncultivated on our surface to supply a greater multiplication of our race, and a longer series of its generations, than we have any reason or necessity now to advert to; and that Providence has kept the earth in this condition, as if to meet and supply its human race at that period when it intended to enlarge and spread their number, let us now consider what it has created to be the needful aliment of mankind, or to be convertible into their nutritious support.

Of the five great divisions of material things-the aerial, the aqueous, the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal-the last two only contain the articles of human subsistence. It is a remarkable fact, that animal life is supported only with that VOL. III.-DD

which has had life in it. Vegetable existence arises from the mineral kingdom, under the agencies of the aerial and the aqueous, on its provided organization and principle of life. Plants, therefore, are not indebted to any preceding vitality for the growth or continuance of their own; but no animal can live on the influences alone of the three compartments of nature which sustain vegetation. They require to be nourished by what has had life in it, and therefore either by vegetable or animal substances. This is remarkable, and beyond our power of explanation. If there be any exception, it lies in the microscopic world; though as the seeds of some plants are invisible, and, by the mould which follows, damp appears to be wherever moisture is, even the living molecules, which our artificial magnifiers reveal to us, may derive their subsistence in the same manner as all other animals, from vegetable cryptogamia or from each other. The chymistry of the living principle in plants, in functional actions, seems to be necessary to put the material particles of the mineral world which form our food into that condition, combination, and digestibility which will be subservient to animal nutrition. The fact, at least, is certain as to ourselves, that we can live only on what has been a living and organized being, either as plant or animal. We have not yet discovered the art of converting azote, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, lime, or clay, or silex, into nutritive matter. The vegetable principle universally has the power of effecting this, by its diversified organizations, into its own compounded substance, and this, so made, becomes our food. Whether mankind, who now, by Mr. Crosse's experiments, have attained the power of crystallizing matter into gems, and of reviving insects or infusoria by the aerial electricity, will acquire the knowledge how to imitate the vegetable process, and, like this, to put the material particles of our surface into an alimentary condition for our use, no one now living can either affirm or deny. It is not impossible, nor is it more unlikely than the galvanic metallization of the earths and alkalis by Sir Humphrey Davy was anterior to his experiment, or the crystallizations of Mr. Crosse before the last year, 1836. If science should ever attain to rival vegetation in this respect, then our population might double themselves as fast as Mr. Malthus supposed; for subsistence then would, like the air and water, be so common and so procurable as to be, perhaps, no more valued than they are. But