ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE ALIMENTS. 929 



add 56,000,000 sheep and 25,000,000 pigs, their 

 food would support a population of 50,000,000 

 human beings, independent of what is employed 

 in feeding poultry, deer, dogs, and cats. And if 

 an acre of ground can produce 22,000 Ibs. of 

 potatoes, which are equal to 5500 Ibs. of wheat, 

 a square mile would support 4821 human beings. 

 Nor is it improbable that the time may come, 

 when animal food and woollen clothing will be 

 exchanged for a vegetable diet (with perhaps 

 milk, butter, eggs, and fish,) and cotton clothing 

 when the work of animals will be performed 

 chiefly by steam power, when the population 

 of England shall be augmented from 280 to 1000 

 on the square mile, and by a judicious variation 

 of their vegetable diet, live far better than at 

 present.* The following Table, compiled by a 

 recent author of great merit, who has chosen to 

 remain anonymous, exhibits an estimate of the 

 relative quantities of food that an acre of ground 

 will produce in temperate climates : 



* In the north eastern provinces of China, where very few 

 animals are reared for food, and still fewer for labour, the 

 population varies from 500 to nearly 800 on the square mile, 

 without the advantage of machinery and other means of augment- 

 ing the comforts of life. It is therefore evident, that with the 

 vast resources of Britain, and the adoption of a diet consisting 

 chiefly of vegetables, she is capable of supporting in comfort 

 more than 100,000,000 inhabitants, and that in such a state of 

 things, there would be no necessity for migration to other coun- 

 tries. 



