OUR COUNTRY OUR WHOLE COUNTRY. 219 



hundred millions of dollars' worth of agricultural pro- 

 duce, averaging about one hundred and forty dollars 

 to each man, woman, and child. The recently-pub- 

 lished letters of Dr. Humphreys are so conclusive 

 and instructive upon this subject, not only in regard 

 to the importance of agriculture to a nation, but as 

 showing the susceptibility of this art of high im- 

 provement and great productiveness, that we subjoin 

 below an extract from one of them. 



" It is the opinion of competent judges, that the 

 advances made in the agriculture of Great Britain 

 during the last seventy or eighty years, are scarcely 

 exceeded by the improvement and extension of her 

 manufactures within the same period, and that to 

 these advances no other old-settled country furnish- 

 es any parallel. That they have been very rapid, 

 indeed, the following figures and comparisons abun- 

 dantly show. In 1760, the total growth of all kinds 

 of grain in England and Wales was about 120,000,000 

 bushels. To this should be added, perhaps, 50,000,000 

 for Scotland ; making a great total of 170,000,000. 

 In 1835, the quantity in both kingdoms could not 

 have been less than 340,000,000 bushels. In 1755, 

 the population of the whole island did not much, if 

 any, exceed 7,500,000. In 1831 it had risen to 

 16,525,180, being an increase of 9,000,000, or 120 

 per cent. ! Now the improvements in agriculture 

 have more than kept pace with this prodigious in- 

 crease of demand for its various productions ; for it 

 is agreed on all hands, that the 16,500,000, or, rath- 

 er, the 17,500,000 (for more than a million has been 

 added since 1831), are much fuller fed, and on pro- 

 visions of a far better quality, than the 7,500,000 

 were in 1755. Nor is Great Britain indebted at all, at 

 present, to foreign markets for her supplies. Since 

 1832, she has imported no grain worth mentioning; 

 and till within the last six months, prices have been 

 so exceedingly depressed as to call forth loud com- 

 plaints from the whole agricultural interest of the 



