both quality and quantity) amounted to more than onethird.

"The original letters," he adds, "are all in my possession, and may be consulted by any gentleman who wishes to examine them. I have very little reason to doubt that the accuracy is as great as can reasonably be expected in such investigations; and the number of counties reported is so large, that I have no great apprehensions of any material error affecting the general average, the particulars being so numerous, that the error on one side may probably be corrected by counter-errors on the other."

By the deficiency of a crop, (it is to be observed,) Mr. Young means, the rate at which it falls short of an ordinary or average crop. An average crop, in the case of wheat, he states in his examination before the Corn Committee, at something between twenty-two and twenty-four bushels per acre. In his own private opinion, he intimates in his pamphlet, it might be stated at twenty-four bushels nearly; but he expressed himself to the Committee with a certain degree of latitude, in order to avoid any suspicion of a wish to exaggerate the deficiency of the crop in question.1

In truth, this deficiency, great as it is, falls short of what most persons expected beforehand, from the general aspect of the season. In England (we are told) no year was ever too dry for wheat,—a plant which thrives well in Spain, where rain has been known to cease for twenty-two months together; and in the Greek islands, where the heat, as Tournefort observes, perfectly calcines the earth.2

By many, both in and out of Parliament, the accuracy of

According to Mr. Young, the average produce of wheat, as hitherto ascertained by the Board of Agriculture, appears to be 231 bushels per acre. From the minutes which he himself collected thirty years ago, in the course of three agricultural tours through England, (extending to about 5000 miles,) he was led to state it at twenty-four bushels;

and the result of his remarks during various tours, made during the last fifteen years, was precisely the same, confirming the accuracy of his former inquiries to a degree which exceeded his expectations.

2 Young's Pamphlet, [Question of Scarcity, &c.,] p. 42.

Mr. Young's estimate was disputed; and it was very strongly asserted by some, that the deficiency did not exceed one-fourth. Without, however, ascribing any superiority to this gentleman either in point of information or of general correctness, it must, I think, be allowed, that, in the present instance, his conclusions are entitled to a peculiar degree of credit, in consequence of the extensive scale on which his inquiries were conducted. It is extremely possible, after all, that they may be wide of the truth; but they certainly possess an authority, in the determination of the question now under consideration, altogether different from what belongs to any local observations, however rigorously exact they may be in all their details. I mention this circumstance, because farmers, and even country gentlemen, are but too apt, on occasions of this kind, to appeal obstinately to their own individual experience, in opposition to those more comprehensive results which they conceive to be influenced by views of self-interest, or the spirit of theory; forgetting that the same circumstances which bestow on practical knowledge so inestimable a value in managing the little concerns of agricultural improvement, have a tendency to bias or warp the judgment in whatever relates to the general interests of an extensive country, diversified by numberless causes both moral and physical. One testimony in favour of the foregoing estimate it may be worth while to mention it is that of the Speaker of the House of Commons, who in his speech of March 6, 1800, states it as a fact now very generally admitted, that the deficiency of the preceding crop amounted to one-third.1

With respect to the deficiency in Scotland, Mr. Young expresses himself with more diffidence. "If the accounts," says he, "which I have received in conversation, be correct, the deficiency in the wheat crop amounts to one-half. That in the oat crop," he adds, "is stated to be the same."

After collecting every possible information concerning the deficiency of the crop in 1799, an important fact remained to be ascertained with respect to the stock in hand at the period of the harvest. This was estimated very differently by different 1 Young, [Question of Scarcity, &c.] p. 56.

individuals. A very able and respectable writer, Mr. Thomas Davis, of Wiltshire, asserted, that the stock in hand was equal to six months' consumption. "If there was left of the old stock at harvest only enough for three months, (and I say there was double that quantity,) where is the cause for alarm ?"1

Other writers stated it at three months. But even this estimate, moderate as it is, when compared with the preceding one, will appear obviously, on a little consideration, to go beyond the truth.

In considering the quantity of the stock in hand at harvest as a resource against the scarcity to be apprehended from a scanty crop, one circumstance deserves attention, which has been frequently overlooked; that a certain stock in hand is absolutely necessary at that season of the year to supply the market till the new crop is ready for use. Mr. Young states this "as probably not less than one month's consumption of the whole kingdom." The only part, therefore, of the stock in hand, which can be supposed to come in aid of the deficient crop, is the excess of the old stock (if there was any such) above what is necessary and common; and consequently, if there existed at the harvest a stock equal to three months' consumption to form an object of commercial speculation, the whole stock then in hand must be understood to have been equal to four months' consumption. The probability of such a supposition is strongly opposed by the extent of capital which such commercial speculations would necessarily require.

About forty years ago, the number of wheat and rye consumers in England was estimated, by Mr. [Charles] Smith, (the very intelligent and accurate author of the Corn Tracts,) at .

The consumers of barley and oats, at

Total,

4,638,000

1,362,000

6,000,000*

The whole population of England being then computed at

1 Quoted by Young, [Question of Scarcity, &c., p. 56.

* [Three Tracts on the Corn Trade, Supplement, Chap. IV. p. 185, ed. 1766.]

6,000,000. Since that time, the consumption of wheat in proportion to that of oats must have increased greatly; and the increase of population would appear to have been considerable. Mr. Young supposes it at present to amount to 10,000,000. His estimate is probably above the truth; but it is sufficiently accurate for the present argument. Of this number, Mr. Young supposes 8,000,000 at least to feed on wheat; and the other 2,000,000 to live on barley and oats. These numbers (he tells us) he fixes on, in order to avoid all charge of exaggeration ; intimating, at the same time, that in his private opinion, the number of wheat eaters is in reality much greater, and that those who, in common times, live on barley and oats, are probably nearer to one than to two millions.

The annual consumption of wheat was estimated by the same gentleman (Mr. [C.] Smith,) from a careful collection and comparison of different authorities, at eight bushels per head, and that of oats at twenty-three; and the inquiries of subsequent writers seem abundantly to confirm the justness of his conclusion. Mr. Young supposes, therefore, that at present eight millions of people consume as many quarters of wheat.

In August 1799, the price of wheat (upon the average of England) was above nine shillings the bushel, or £3, 12s. the quarter. Two millions [of quarters] at that price come to £7,200,000-a capital which it is scarcely conceivable should be scattered over the country, ready to be applied to a speculation so hazardous in the issue. Indeed, we may venture to assert, that, in by much the greater part of the kingdom, no such speculations could be made by millers and mealmen, either in the way of keeping or of buying. The truth is, that the number of those who are tempted to speculate when prices are very high, is at all times so inconsiderable that it may be laid down as a general fact, that speculative hoarding is proportioned to cheapness. Such speculations, too, it must be remembered, when attempted so late as the month of August,

* [Ibid. Supplement, chap. v. pp. 198, 199, edition, 1766.]

have but a small sphere to act in; the quantity of corn in the whole kingdom then being small, and every part of it necessarily possessing a share of that small portion. As for farmers, a still more direct appeal to the evidence of the senses:-"Every person," says Young, "who is in the habit of travelling over England, knows perfectly well, that for one distriet where old wheat stacks abound in harvest, there are ten where you will look in vain for more than a few solitary ones in the hands of here and there a great farmer." The assertions to the contrary in the evidence brought before Parliament, come from individuals, who, living in parts of the kingdom where farms are generally large, (such as Wiltshire and Dorsetshire,) have absurdly extended the result of their local observations to the island at large. Such is the assertion of Mr. Davis of Wiltshire, that there was left, of the old stock, at harvest 1799, enough for six months' consumption,-although during that year the price had been ten shillings a quarter beyond the average, notwithstanding the importation of nearly half a million of quarters.1

Another circumstance which has frequently contributed to mislead individuals in their statements on this subject, is the business of thrashing wheat, which, in the neighbourhood of great towns where there is a regular demand for straw at all times, is often delayed till the spring and summer. The fact, however, undoubtedly is, that in by far the greater part of the kingdom (excepting in the case of the few farmers who are rich enough to speculate in price) wheat is thrashed during the course of the winter, when cattle thrive better on straw than they would do in spring. In winter 1799-1800, this must have been still more generally the case than in ordinary seasons, on account of the enormous price which straw yielded everywhere; which price (as Mr. Young has observed) must have operated, in addition to the high price of the grain, as a direct premium upon thrashing.

Of what happens in ordinary years a judgment may be formed from a fact which Mr. Young states with confidence; 1 Young, [Question of Scarcity, &c.] p. 56.