in return that of the producers; and contrasts this state of things with those districts where numbers create plenty and prosperity'. I wish I could insert his beautiful description of the reclamation of the marsh in the Val di Chiana, consisting of about three thousand acres belonging to the religious order of St. Stephen. It seemed the most natural to throw the whole into one grand domain, with a suitable mansion in the centre. But the Tuscans knew better than thus to consign it to languor and inactivity. They divided it into a number of small farms, the extraordinary productiveness of which (for he visited it in time of harvest), and the happy occupation of the numerous families, its inhabitants, he describes in a most pleasing manner. It just strikes me, that, if the protestant order of St. Stephen's in this country would follow the example of the Italian one, and reclaim an Irish bog by way of trial, and thus parcel it out amongst a number of meritorious inhabitants, the experiment might be better worth hazarding, notwithstanding the uproar it would certainly create amongst the political economists, than spending ten times the sum in expatriating an equal number of the people. But I must refrain from further quotation of this interesting author: every word of what he has written bears upon the argument in hand, and is the more valuable as proceeding from one whose business it was to make these observations, and evidently qualified for the task, by a thorough acquaintance with agriculture, theoretically 1 Chateauvieux, Travels, p. 50.

There would then be security for capital, rent, &c.

and practically. In a country the most calculated of all others to put the practice to the test, in which every several district presented a demonstration of the principle, he found the ancient agricultural polity, which is that of nature and of providence, fully justified; and health, plenty, and prosperity connected with the cultivation of the surface of the earth, in, comparatively speaking, minute subdivisions.

(9.) But of all the examples of successful cultivation the world holds forth, at least in modern times, that of the Netherlands is unquestionably the most interesting and important. Little, it is true, has been written on agriculture by the Flemings, its having been their policy, as it is thought, to conceal their superior georgics as much as possible; but it has been know for centuries past, that the modes of culture practised there have been superior to those of all other countries; those who wished for improvement in this most important branch of human industry, therefore, had to proceed thither, and personally observe their methods. This has been the practice with many for ages past, and hence the various essential improvements, whether in reference to the due and constant rotation of crops, the use of artificial grasses, the best stercoraceous system,-in fact, all that conduces to successful farming have been successively introduced into other countries: in a word, Flanders has been the university of agriculture. No wonder is it, therefore, that, in so elaborate a work as the Encyclopædia Britannica, we are specially directed to the closest consideration of the agriculture of that country. I wish, in the article on general agriculture, the prac

tice of this particular district had not been too much lost sight of, in reference to the system of extensive farms; my observations on the subject would then have been rendered unnecessary. It is unhappily other

wise. But, to quote from the Supplement; in the article on the Netherlands, the subject is thus prefaced : "The agriculture of the Netherlands, which, even in the northern portion, that was formerly the Seven United Provinces, was MORE THE FOUNDATION OF ITS WEALTH THAN EITHER MANUFACTURES OR NAVIGATION, deserves the most close examination; and merits more detailed accounts than our limits will allow1."

That the agricultural economy of this country demands the deepest consideration, especially in these times and in this country, in which so much is said about excessive population in reference to the means of subsistence, and (theoretically) about the principles of political economy, is manifest, for these important

reasons:

1. The kingdom of the Netherlands is the most densely peopled of any considerable country upon earth.

2. Its soil, notwithstanding that its amazing produce has been the means of spreading a very contrary notion, is, on the unanimous authority of all writers who have examined it, the reverse of prolific; nay, compared with that of the surrounding countries, it is naturally untractable, sterile, and bad2.

Encyc. Brit., Supplement, vol. vi. p. 66.

Abbé Mann, on the Husbandry of the Netherlands, in Communications to the Board of Agriculture, vol. i. p. 238. Baron de Poederlé; ibid. p. 247. Puffendorf's Introd. Hist. Europe, p. 261. Dr. Harte, Essays on Husbandry, pp. 69, 177. Louis Buonaparte, Ex-King of Holland, Historical Documents, &c., pp. 14, 16. Many others might be added. I shall thus sum up these authorities:

3. That soil, though by no means universally cultivated, has sufficed to feed and maintain its immense population, and perhaps in more comfortable circumstances, generally speaking, than those of any other country; and to sustain, likewise, the poor, and perhaps, on the whole, quite as well as in England.

4. The surplus produce (to use the fashionable term) of the rural population must be very great, from the circumstance of so vast a number of the inhabitants living in the cities and towns of the kingdom; but, to end all uncertainty as to estimates founded on internal calculations,

5. "No country in Europe provides from its soil so great a quantity of sustenance, not only for its inhabitants, but so large a surplus of food for exportation, and such valuable commodities to exchange for articles of foreign growth, as Flanders1."

6. So great has been that surplus, that it has of late occasioned considerable distress to the cultivators, in that they have not been enabled to dispose of the whole of it elsewhere'; in the meantime, it is important to observe, that they applied for and obtained protection against foreign competition in their own markets. "In the year 1824, they petitioned the king of the Netherlands, with a view to protection, to prohibit the importation of foreign grain ;" but in lieu of

"The land of Flanders was not naturally fertile: on the contrary, the quality of it is such as merely to admit of fertilization, by a series of operations more or less expensive and laborious. Where cultivation has not been extended, the soil produces nothing but heath and fir."(Encyc. Brit., Supplement, vol. vi. p. 86.)

1

Encyc. Brit., Sup., Netherlands, p. 68.

'Jacob, Travels in Holland, &c. pp. 69, 70.

that he imposed, in anticipation, an increase in the duty upon it, afterwards confirmed by the legislature, amounting to four hundred per centum, compared with that fixed eight years before1. Our government has, of late years, been pursuing an opposite policy; how wisely, remains to be seen, or rather is now becoming apparent. I think Mr. Jacob clearly points out, in a book published but a little before his celebrated "Report," some cogent reasons, as yet unanswered, why the British agriculturist, compared with the Dutch, demands far greater protection3.

I cannot forbear withdrawing the attention of the reader from the immediate object in view, in order to point out how sorry a figure the principle of population, which I am opposing in this work, cuts, in the very arena where it ought to triumph. Look at the Netherlands, the most densely peopled kingdom upon earth; and of which Mr. Malthus has somewhere said, or at least of Holland, that it does not keep up its numbers by procreation, but is the grave-yard of Germany; possessing a soil by no means fertile, nor yet wholly cultivated:-have the tendencies and ratios which I shall not restate, having already had so often to repeat them, been manifested there? Alas! for the mingled folly and falsehood of such a statement: the distress, if, generally speaking, there be any, we are assured arises, not from over-population, but over-production, an evil which the true principle of

'Parliamentary Papers relative to regulations existing in foreign countries in respect of the export and import of grain, Feb. 19, 1827, pp. 18, 19, 20.

2 Jacob, Travels in Holland, &c. p. 69. 3 Ibid. pp. 8, 47, 52, 70, &c.