144 THE LANDED INTEREST. 



not only more attractive, but more remunerative 

 in health and enjoyment, than they probably 

 would be if subjected to costly improvement by 

 drainage, or by being broken up for cultivation. 

 The poor clay soils, which are expensive to 

 cultivate, and meagre in yield, will be gradually 

 all laid to grass, and the poorer soils of every 

 kind, upon which the costs of cultivation bear 

 a high proportion to the produce, will probably 

 follow the same rule. During the last ten years 

 the permanent pasture in Great Britain has, 

 chiefly from this cause, been increased by more 

 than one million acres. 

 Population On the other hand the population is multi- 



at present 



rate of plying at the rate of 350,000 a year, nearly a 



increase, 



thousand a day. Their consumption of food 

 improves, not only in proportion to their increase 

 in numbers, but also with the augmenting scale of 

 wages. Twenty-five years ago the agricultural 

 population rarely could afford to eat butchers' 

 meat more than once a week. Some of them 

 now have it every day, and as the condition of 

 the rest of the people has improved in an equal 

 degree, the increased consumption of food in 



