CHAP. XXI. INCREASE OF WEALTH. 137 



addition to their numbers of at least forty on the 

 hundred. Now the bare subsistence of this in- 

 creased population, even in exactly the same man- 

 ner as their ancestors had lived, would require an 

 augmentation in the commodities which were the 

 subject of exchange commensurate with the in- 

 crease of their numbers, and to circulate such 

 commodities, an addition of money at the rate of 

 forty per cent. 



But mankind in Europe did not continue to live 

 as their ancestors had done. In the course of the 

 century the production of necessaries, of comforts, 

 and of luxuries had proceeded with more speed 

 than the progress of population. The prohibition 

 which existed in the time of Elizabeth, against 

 converting arable land into pasture, had become 

 obsolete an England. More cattle were reared 

 and fattened, and by the manure they supplied to 

 the soil more corn was produced on the same 

 portion of land with less labour, and thus labourers 

 were gradually furnished for other branches of in- 

 dustry. The author of Fleta, who wrote in the 

 reign of Edward L, says, " that if land yielded 

 only three times the seed sown, the farmer would 

 be a loser unless corn should sell dear." Sir John 

 Cullum, in an account given of a farm in Norfolk, 

 states the produce in the year 1390 to have been 

 wheat six bushels, barley twelve bushels, and oats 

 only five bushels : that year was indeed an unpro- 

 ductive one, and he rates the average annual pro- 



