III. The prefent State of Great-Britain and North-America, with Regard to Agriculture, Population, Trade, and Manufactures, impartially confidered: Containing a particular Account of the Dearth and Scarcity of the Neceffaries of Life in England; the Want of flaple Commodities in the Colonies; the Decline of their Trade; Increase of People; and Neceffity of Manufactures, as well as of a Trade in them hereafter. In which the Causes and Confequences of these growing Evils, and Methods of preventing them, are suggested; the proper Regulations for the Colonies, and the Taxes imposed upon them, are confidered, and compared with their Condition and Circumstances. 8vo. Pr. 55. Becket and Hondt. : THE general tendency of this work, which is composed with a precision and knowledge of the subject equal to its importance, is extremely interesting at this juncture, being designed to shew the mutual relation that subsists between Great Britain and her colonies, and planning out the means by which they can prove of mutual service to each other under all their difficulties and distresses. Our author begins with confiderations on the agriculture of Great Britain with respect to the dearth and scarcity of corn, provisions, and other necessaries, particularly the articles of daily confumption; shewing the causes of these public calamities, and the manner of preventing their consequences, which are ruinous to population, trade, and manufactures. He afferts, and strengthens his opinion with, we think, irrefragable arguments, that the present dearth of provisions in England muss not be attributed to any temporary accidents of the seasons, but proceeds from three permanent causes; first, the vast encrease of towns; fecondly, the want of husbandmen and labourers in the country; thirdly, the great number of horses. The latter inconveniency the writer has placed in a new as well as striking light: he shews, that they confume the bread of the poor, and that the island of Britain is not extenfive enough to maintain a fufficient number of people for the numerous concerns of the nation. He thinks that a tax on horses and dogs would afford a bounty on corn consumed by the poor; mentions several improvements in agriculture, and the rearing of animals proper for food, which may be introduced; and strengthens his arguments with examples drawn from other countries. He proposes, in particular, the cultivation of fuch grain as are almost unknown in England; and thinks, that were these forts of grain introduced, it would not only be a great faving to the nation if the people fed upon them, but amount to more than the whole exportation of corn. Take (fays (fays he) barley, rye, and oats, one with another, they are not above half the price of wheat; so that if the people of England, who confume 7,500,000 quarters of corn a year, worth at least eight millions sterling, were to live on these, and the like. mentioned below, they would fave three or four millions a year, which would foon reduce the price of provisions! We are ignorant how the true-born fons of Scotland and Ire land will relish this author's sentiments of the common people of both nations; for he affirms that the former have hardly any other food than oatmeal, and that the vulgar of Ireland live upon potatoes. The following passage, which is part of a note, contains so valuable and curious a portion of agricultural history, that it must prove highly acceptable to our readers. • The only fort of corn proper for the northern parts of Ame rica, is one that grows naturally in the foil and climate, well known to many by the name of Wild Oats. It is so called because it grows like an oat, but the grain is to all intents and purposes a species of rice. It excels that, however, and all other forts of grain that are known, in many remarkable properties; it neither requires reaping, threshing, cleaning, grinding, bolting, nor baking; the grain is easily gathered with the hand, and is fit to eat, boiled like rice, as foon as it is gathered; it neither adheres to the husk, like rice, barley and oats, nor has it any bran like wheat, which create a great expence in these sorts of grain. It likewise affords food both for man and beaft, or ripe corn and green fodder, at one and the fame time. The blade, which grows four or five feet long, and fometimes seven, has a sweetness in it like Indian corn, and is as much coveted, whether green or dry, by beasts of every kind. Having mowed it for several years, I am well assured it is the best fodder that grows, except the blades of Indian corn. The grain is likewife as agreeable. F. Hennepin lived upon it, and found it" better and more wholesome than rice," to use his words. The grain indeed is but slender, as it grows wild, although very long, and smooth like cleaned rice; but there is no fuch corn growing wild in any other part of the world, that we have seen or heard of; the best forts of corn were but grafs, and not to be compared to this, before they were improved by culture. Were this duly cultivated like rice, as it grows in like manner in water, it would be as useful; and we might have rice from our northern, as well as fouthern colonies. It grows all over North America, as far north as Hudson's Bay, in the coldest climates of any grain. The natives of Hudson's Bay, and Lake Superior, have no other corn. Besides this, there is a species of barley peculiar to the fouthern parts of North America, where the common barley will not thrive S2 thrive Were that continent explored, it would be found, that we might have both corn, wine, oil, wool, filk, hemp, flax, and many other valuable commodities, all of the native growth of North America; and these are the more to be re garded, as no others will thrive in the climate; they are likewise totally different from any thing that Britain produces, and might by that means keep the colonies from interfering with their mother country, &c. • This corn might be as proper for all the low, wet and boggy grounds in Great-Britain and Ireland, which are so extensive, and produce nothing. And such a corn might prove as ferviceable as potatoes have been, which were in like manner brought from America. These com:non potatoes are the Papas of Peru, where they grow naturally, and were the only bread corn that the natives had upon their cold mountains, or have to this day. They likewise grind them to meal, and make a bread of it, called Chunno, which is famous in hiftory; with this the Indians supplied the mines of Potosi, and grew richer by the trade than the miners. The Spaniards likewise make a great variety of dishes with them, unknown to us, and live upon them like the common people in Ireland-They were first brought to Europe by Sir Francis Drake, in his retura from the expedition to the Spanish West Indies in 1586. He then brought the colony of Virginia home with him, and among the rest the famous mathematician Mr. Thomas Heriot, who was fent thither by Sir Walter Raleigh to explore the productions of the country, and brought these roots with him; he gave them to Gerard the botanist, who first planted them in London, and fent them to Clufius in Holland, who planted them in Burgundy, and sent them to Italy; as appears from the works of these and several other authors. It was from this their introduction into Europe, that they are said by most of our writers to have been natives of Virginia, where they will hardly grow, and do not thrive, unless they are planted in the following manner. They should be planted in trenches like Celeri, and earthed up to the top of the stalk in like manner, till they come to be in blossom; by that means they spread and grow to a great size under ground, as I learnt from my late worthy friend Don Pedro Maldonado, F. R. S. governor of the province of Emeraldos, and a native of Quito, who reckoned our potatoes but very indifferent, in comparison of what they daily eat and live upon, by this method of culture in Peru. 6 They are cultivated in this manner, in order to prevent the plant from running into stalk and feed, which robs the root of its nourishment. But in Britain, the feed never ripens as in America, America, which abundantly shews that they are exotics. Upon this account it is not altogether so necessary here to earth them up as they grow, although it may be as proper. This method of cultivating potatoes is necessary on another account, in order to divest them of the rank and poisonous quality of the Solanum, of which they are a species. This is so strong in them, where they grow on the furface of the ground exposed to the fun in hot climates, that the very hogs will not taste them, and I have known people who could not fit at table where they were, for this their poisonous scent, of which the hogs are more sensible than we are. Even when kept on hard meat on board of ship, I have seen hogs refuse these potatoes grown in a hot climate. They there grow hard and knotty when exposed to the fun, instead of foft and mealy, and have this rank flavor to such a degree, that many people cannot taste them. It was for this reason, that when they were first planted in Burgundy, the use of them was condemned by law, for occafioning a severe distemper, they imagined. But in these cold climates, which are more natural to them, or by thus covering them up from the fun, they are so divested of this rank and noxious flavor, that we are not sensible of it; no more than the hogs whose scent is so acute. But from these their qualities, the use of potatoes has been chiefly confined to the British ifles, to which they were first brought; and here the general use that is made of them seems to have been owing to an accident in Ireland, in the time of the civil wars, when the armies destroyed the fields of corn; but some fields of potatoes, we are told, throve very well after they were trampled by them, and supplied the want of corn, as they have done ever since.But these are not to be compared to the Spanish potatoes, as they are called, which are a very different root and plant, and much more delicious and wholesome." The writer next proceeds to prove, that foreigners are entirely mistaken in supposing the foil of England to be worn out. The improvements of this kingdom are so far from being exhausted, that they are scarcely commenced. If this nation (fays he) were to exert itself in agriculture, both at home and abroad, as well as in trade and navigation, and to give but a very small moiety of that encouragement to one, which the lays -out upon the other, she might make the arts of peace as great a terror to her enemies as the late war; and defend herself from daily infults by these, as well as by her fleets, which the income from her lands would support. The people, he thinks, decrease, and particularly in their towns, over all England, Scotland, and Ireland; and that the tax he proposes, with a few others, might retrieve our population. $ 3 They • They who can afford to keep dogs and horfes, may well afford to pay forty or fifty shillings a year for such purposes as these; when great numbers are unable to live by paying fuch heavy taxes, and high prices, for every thing which they, or their children, put in their mouths, and are daily obliged to use. As dogs and horses raise the price of provisions to fuch an height, the frugal and industrious tradesman is by that means obliged to pay for the extravagancies of the fox-hunters, racers and others; and the very poor, and even the beggars, pay for the coaches of the richest in every morsel of bread they eat; which they might much better afford to do, were it any thing else, To make dogs and horses, therefore, relieve these burdens on the poor, is only to put the saddle on the right horse. They who keep them should confider, that it is the poor who maintain the rich, and make their fortunes. -A few idle gentlemen, who do nothing but live on the rest, and keep dogs and horses, are hardly to be confidered in a state, otherwise both they and their country will foon come to be of very little confideration. -For want of employment and bread, and from the excessive dearness of every thing, the poor are obliged to defert the country; after which the gentlemen must provide for their dogs and horses themselves. This nation loses so many people in its many large towns at home, which increase so fast; in its foreign trade, and many plantations abroad, which have been lately extended in climates that seem to be calculated to destroy its people; that it will foon, in the way it goes on, have no people left, unless the poor are provided for, and can find a subsistance at a cheaper rate. - This seems already to have happened in Ireland, and will soon be the case in England. The enormous expences of this nation, in foreign articles, extirpate the poor, and are very ill suited to its circumstances.j It might be easy to mention only a few, among many, befides dogs and horfes, which cost at least four or five millions a year, as much as all the public debts amount to. Upon the whole, as this tax would afford a bounty on one half of the corn confuned in the kingdom, and consequently for all the labourers, tradesmen, manufacturers, and poor, who would at the same time be relieved from those ruinous taxes on the articles of daily consumption, which, with the high price of provisions that is daily rising, threaten the total ruin of this nation; such a general and public benefit, which has been fo long wanted, and so much defired, must be looked upon as an advantage infinitely greater than any inconvenience that may arise from a tax on dogs and horfes; especially as that tax would be the greatest benefit in itself, were it not appropriated to these signal services; and is only a tax on the |