BEER AND LAND IN ENGLAND. 35 



into puddings or pottage which, spread in thin cakes and toasted, is eaten 

 warm with butter, cream and sugar. The malting property of the 

 seed depends on the fact that the lobes or cotyledons of the seeds are 

 always converted by the heat and moisture of the earth into sugar be- 

 fore the young plant is produced ; and malting is an artificial process 

 of effecting the same thing. The chemical constituents of mucilage 

 and sugar are nearly alike. 



The use of barley in preparing fermented liquors is very ancient. Its 

 invention is ascribed to the Egyptians. In Nubia the green ears are 

 boiled in water and eaten with milk. The beer of the Greeks was 

 called barley wine. The ancient Germans also made wine of it. It 

 was the general drink of the Anglo Saxons, wine being the drink of 

 elders and the wise,"" they did not, however, use hops in their ale, as 

 these were first used in the Netherlands, in the beginning of the 14th 

 century, and in England two centuries afterwards. There are more 

 than 30 millions of bushels of barley annually converted into malt in 

 Great Britain, and more than 8 millions of barrels, or 288 millions of 

 gallons of beer made, of which four-fifths are strong beer. 



One would think from this and certainly not without reason that, 

 in addition to the vast quantities of wines and ardent spirits made, im- 

 ported and drank in that country, that it must be a land of drunken- 

 ness;" and when we find this statement accompanied by the following 

 remarks from the professedly pure and philanthropic source from 

 whence it is derived, the fact is not more startling than the conclu- 

 sions are mortifying. This is," says the commentator, a consump- 

 tion by the great body of the people of a favorite beverage, which in- 

 dicates a distribution of the national wealth, satisfactory by comparison 

 with the general poverty of less advanced periods of civilization in our 

 own country, and with that of less industrious nations in our own day." 



We might enquire, perhaps, without being charged with presump- 

 tion, if the annual distribution" of 40 millions of bushels of barley, 

 thus in our opinion infinitely worse than wasted, to hungry millions of 

 poor, would not indicate" a far more " satisfactory distribution of 

 the national wealth ?" 



55,000 acres of land were occupied in 1838 in the cultivation of hops, 

 and the malt on which duty was paid was 40,505,566 bushels ; and in 

 1836,44,387,719 bushels. Estimating the product at 30 bushels the 

 acre, the land which this must occupy, is 147,959j acres, to which add 

 that occupied by hops, and the land employed for the purpose of pro- 

 ducing malt liquor, would be 202,959j acres of prime soil. Calculat- 

 ing the soil to produce the same number of bushels of wheat as of bar- 

 ley consumed, as above, and each bushel at 601bs., the product would 

 be 2,663,263,140 Ibs. Now, estimating 500 Ibs. to support one person, 

 or as equal to 480 Ibs. of flour, the estimated anuual consumption of 

 each individual, and this land would support 5,326,526 persons ! who 





