^6 ANT TENT METAPHYSICS. Book VIL 



plough with three horfes, and fometlmes with four, and a driver. 

 Whereas my plough, with two oxen, goes without a driver. 



But bcfides the horfes that are thus unneceffarily employed in ru- 

 i\il work, the number of them that are ufcd in equipages for vanity 

 and the indulgence of eafe, is very great ; and they are all fed with 

 oats as well as hay, and with the befl grafs in the fummer. Now, when 

 we compute the quantity of ground that mud be employed for fat- 

 tening the cattle that are eatten in England, for railing barley to be 

 ufed in diflillation, and, lajll)\ what is employed in feeding fo many 

 horfes with grafs, hay, and oats, it muft make, altogether, a great 

 quantity, and of good land in England, which, though it might 

 not all be fit for producing crops of wheat, would certainly, if it 

 were cultivated, produce oats and barley. Now, I reckon oats a 

 very good food for men as well as for horfes : And, accordingly, in 

 Lancalhire, v/hich produces as good men, or better than any other 

 country of England, and the fineft women, the bread, which the in- 

 habitants eat, is chiefly oat-bread. For my own part, while I live 

 in my country houfe, 1 eat no bread, excepting oat and barley-bread, 

 but chiefly barley-bread, which, v/hen well baked and prepared, I 

 think the fineft of all bread. 



When I join to thefe confideratlons the great quantity of land in 

 England that lies wafte in uncultivated commons, and the diviilon 

 of the cultivated land into fuch great farms, 1 thiak it is true, what I 

 have faid, that the land of England, as it is employed at prefenr, does 

 not maintain near the number of inhabitants that it might maintain : 

 And, upon the whole, it is to me evident, that the population of 

 England is not fo great as it was in the days of Julius Casfar, or even 

 in later times, under the feudal governmenr, unlefs we are to fuppofe 

 that great towns, fuch as London, add to the populatioti of a coun- 

 try ; whereas, the fad truly is, that they difpeople the country, by 

 drawing m.en from it to be confumed by vices and difeaf'es. 



CHAP. 



