The Pamphleteer

reason to believe what is used as food somewhat exceeds that quantity. As the scale is framed chiefly for purposes of comparison, it was desirable to adopt for the average a number easily divided into fractional parts.

In collecting the facts on which the scale is framed, a variety of methods have been pursued, the results of each of which have been examined, and then compared with each other, to form the final result to which they have all led.

Your lordships are aware that there are several individuals in this country possessing large capital, which have at particular seasons been employed in the trade in grain, who are in the practice of estimating the produce of each harvest, and the quantity remaining in stock in the whole kingdom. At the beginning of the harvest, such persons, either by their experienced agents or themselves, inspect the state of the crops through the several corn districts, compare and register their remarks, and avail themselves of the combined facts, when brought into a focus, to regulate their subsequent sales and purchases of grain.

As such individuals are neither influenced by political, party, nor theoretical views, but directed solely by their own pecuniary interests, their judgments are likely to be founded on a simple view of mere facts, to be quickened by the desire of gain, and to be improved by the annual practical surveys they take. I have been fortunate enough to obtain from several of these parties the conclusions to which in each year they have arrived; and feel myself indebted to them for the clearness and frankness with which they have communicated, under a caution against bringing their names before the public, the estimates on which they have relied, and intend hereafter to rely, as the means of their individual benefit.

By an extensive correspondence with almost every part of this island, I have been enabled to collect a great number of accounts of the actual amount of the quantity of wheat grown in each of the twelve years in question, by individuals who cultivate the soil, and keep regular books of produce and sales. If I relied on such accounts, as to the actual produce of wheat in the whole kingdom in each year, I should most enormously miscalculate our annual growth; they would show an average number of bushels per acre, very far exceeding what a true statement would exhibit: the fact is, that such accounts as I have been favored with are returns from the best informed men on the best cultivated farms in their several districts.

Although a calculation of the absolute quantity produced resting on such accounts would mislead, yet, for the purpose of framing a scale of the proportional productiveness, they may be trusted to with some degree of confidence.

I am disposed to yield the greater confidence to them, from seeing that, differing greatly as the several farms do from each other in their average produce in the series of years, they nearly coincide, with very slight variations, as to their relative productiveness, in each indivi

dual year. On farms, for instance, which have, on the average of the 2D

VOL. XXIX.

Pam.

NO. LVIII.

twelve years, afforded but twenty-one bushels of wheat per acre, when compared with others whose average during the same years has been thirty-two bushels the acre, I observe, that each year has borne nearly the same proportion to the other years in every instance. Thus, on every one of the farms, the year 1820 exceeded by far the most the average of the whole years of the cycle, and the year 1816 fell the most below the same average. The years of intermediate productiveness vary little from each other in the several accounts in my collection.

I have collected all those accounts, and formed from them an average; and compared that with the average derived from combining together the estimates of the several annual surveys of the speculative merchants. The result of this comparison has led me to depend with some confidence on the scale which I have framed from the junction, which I now submit to your lordships' consideration.

In order to discover any error in the formation of the scale, I have compared it with the remarks collected by Mr. Tooke, in his valuable work on "High and Low Prices;" and with the accounts of the same years scattered, though vaguely, through the several periodical agricultural journals, which are published both in England and Scotland.

I beg here to make one remark, which has occurred to me, from examining and comparing the returns of the crops of wheat on so many farms, and in the counties of England most distant from each other. It is, that the influence of climate, or whatever else may influence productiveness, seems to be very equably distributed over the whole of England. Thus the same years which show the highest degree of productiveness in Northumberland and Durham, are found in Hants and Somerset to have yielded the largest crops, and the years which have been the least productive show the same comparative degree of deficiency in the same two distant districts.

A Scale of Productiveness as far as regards the crop of Wheat in each year, from 1816 to 1827, both inclusive; in which number 240 is used to represent the portion of Wheat here supposed to be consumed in each year for food in Great Britain.

Although the preceding scale goes back no farther than to the harvest of 1816, it is to be borne in mind that the crop op of the year 1813 was one of a most abundant character: the harvest of 1814 was a full average; and that of 1815 abundant, but a little inferior to that of 1813. When the calamitous harvest of 1816 occurred, the excess of the three preceding years had been preserved, and formed an accumulated store, which providentially prevented a dreadful scarcity, if not a famine, in the greater part of 1817.

According to the best estimate I can form, grounded on the opinion of persons interested in knowing, as accurately as possible, the state of the stock of wheat on hand at the commencement of each harvest, there was, when that of 1816 began to be reaped, about 6,150,000 quarters of wheat to spare of former years' growth. On the assumption of that quantity being in the country, for the accuracy of which I must depend on those most conversant with the subject at that time, the following calculation of supply and demand, from 1816 to the present time, is framed :

Harvest of 1816.-Stock on hand of pre