44 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



make an estimate thereof by the acre), in meane and 

 indifferent years, wherein each acre of rie or wheat, 

 well tilled and dressed, will yield commonlie sixteene 

 or tvventie bushels ; an acre of barley, six-and-thirtie 

 bushels ; of otes, and such like, four or five quar- 

 ters ; which proportion is notwithstanding oft abated 

 toward the north, as it is- oftentimes surmounted in 

 the south.'* The mean produce in Great Britain, 

 according to the estimate of Mr Arthur Young, 

 did not, at the time when he wrote (about 50 years 

 ago), exceed twenty-two and a half bushels per 

 acre. Other and later writers have calculated the 

 average at from twenty-four to twenty-eight bushels ; 

 while the author of the Reports on Agriculture for 

 Middlesex has asserted, that the medium quantity 

 in that county is forty bushels, the highest produce 

 he has known being sixty-eight, and the lowest 

 twelve bushels per acre. The land in the county 

 which was the subject of these Reports, owing to its 

 proximity to the metropolis, may be considered as in 

 a state of high condition, and much beyond the ordi- 

 nary rate of fertility. At all times, and in every 

 country, some situations will be found more prolific 

 than others, and some individuals will be more suc- 

 cessful in their agricultural -labours. Puny has re- 

 lated a case which occurred among the Romans, 

 where this success was seen in so marked a degree, 

 that the able agriculturist who, by excelling his 

 countrymen, had rendered himself the object of envy, 

 was cited before the Curule Edile and an assembly of 

 the people, to answer to a charge of sorcery, founded 

 on his reaping much larger crops from his very 

 small spot of ground than his neighbours did from 

 their extensive fields. ' In answer to this charge 

 Cresinus produced his efficient implements of hus- 

 bandry, his well-fed oxen, and a hale young woman 



* Description of Britain,' prefixed to Hollingshed- 



