23.14. 14. Of the Productions of the Earth which require a greater or less
Number of Men.
Pasture-lands are but little peopled, because they find
employment only for a few. Corn-lands employ a great many men, and
vineyards infinitely more.
It has been a frequent complaint in England
[18]
that the increase of
pasture-land diminished the inhabitants; and it has been observed in
France that the prodigious number of vineyards is one of the great
causes of the multitude of people.
Those countries where coal-pits furnish a proper substance for fuel
have this advantage over others, that not having the same occasion for
forests, the lands may be cultivated.
In countries productive of rice, they are at vast pains in watering
the land: a great number of men must therefore be employed. Besides,
there is less land required to furnish subsistence for a family than in
those which produce other kinds of grain. In fine, the land which is
elsewhere employed in raising cattle serves immediately for the
subsistence of man; and the labour which in other places is performed by
cattle is there performed by men; so that the culture of the soil
becomes to man an immense manufacture.
Footnotes
[18]
The greatest number of the proprietors of land, says Bishop
Burnet, finding more profit in selling their wool than their corn,
inclosed their estates; the commons, ready to perish with hunger, rose
up in arms; they insisted on a division of the lands; the young king
even wrote on this subject. And proclamations were made against those
who inclosed their lands. — "Abridgment of the History of the
Reformation," pp. 44. 83.
