increase. 



144 The Landed Interest. 



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 

 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 

 this country has been prodigious. In addition 

 to the whole of our home produce, we imported 

 in 1877 foreign food and corn of the value of 

 one hundred millions sterling, two-thirds of 

 which was in corn, and one- third live and 



