essay1 [15]
ground. The wage regular and bitter wars over these boundaries, and always proportion their numbers to their means of support from the chase. The European cultivate the land and draw corn from it for their subsistence. The wool and draw corn from it for their subsistence. The wool of their sheep provides them with clothing. Wheat is the grain on which most of them are fed, but some peasants make their bread of rye, and in the north of barley and oats. The food of the peasants and the people is not the same in all countries of Europe, and land is often different in quality and fertility. Most of the land in Flanders and part of that in Lombardy yields 18 to 20 fold without lying idle; the Campagna of Naples yields still more. There are a few properties in France, Spain, England and Germany which yield the same amount. Cicero tells us that the land of Sicily in his time yielded tenfold, and the elder Pliny says that the Leontine lands in Sicily yielded a hundred fold, those of Babylon a hundred and fifty, and some African lands a good deal more. Today land in Europe yields on the average six times what is sown, so that five times the seed remains for the consumption of the people. Land usually rests one year in three, producing wheat the first year and barley the second. In the supplement will be found estimates of the amount of land required for the support of a man according to the different assumptions of his manner of living. It will be seen that a man who lives on bread, garlic and roots, wears only hempen garments, coarse linen, wooden shoes, and drinks only water, like many peasants in the south of France, can live on the produce of an acre and a half of land of medium goodness, yielding a sixfold harvest and resting once in 3 years. On the other hand a grown-up man who wears leather shoes, stockings, woollen cloth, who lives in a house and has a change of linen, a bed, chairs, table, and other necessaries, drinks moderately of beer or wine, eats every day meat, butter, cheese, bread, vegetables, etc. sufficiently and yet moderately needs for all that the produce of 4 to 5 acres of land of medium quality. It is true that in these estimates nothing is allowed for the food of horses except for the plough and carriage of produce for ten miles. History records that the first Romans each maintained his family on two journaux of land, equal to one Paris acre and 330 square feet or thereabouts. They were almost naked, had no wine or oil, lay in the straw, and had hardly any comforts, but as they cultivated intensely the land, which is fairly good around Rome, they drew from it plenty of corn and of vegetables. If the proprietors of land had at heart the increase of population, if they encouraged the peasants to marry young and bring up children by promising to provide them with subsistence, devoting their land entirely to that purpose, they would doubtless increase the population up to the point which the land could support, according to the produce they allotted for each person whether an acre and a half or four to five acres a head. But if instead of that the prince, or the proprietors of land, cause the land to be used for other purposes than the upkeep of the people: if by the prices they offer in the market for produce and merchandise they determine the farmers to employ the land for other purposes than the maintenance of man (for we have seen that the prices they offer in the market and their consumption determine the use made of the land just as if they cultivated it themselves) the people will necessarily diminish in number. Some will be forced to leave the country for lack of employment, others not seeing the necessary means of raising children, will not marry or will only marry late, after having put aside somewhat for the support of the household. If the proprietors of land who live in the country go to reside in the cities far away from their land, horses must be fed for the transport into the city both of their food and that of all the domestic servants, mechanics and