140 Mr. Curwen on the Means of 



it will never be grown whilst foreign grain can be imported as heretofore. And I 

 still doubt the average is taken too low to produce any considerable change. 



The situation to which the country is reduced, demands efficient measures to be 

 taken, to rescue it from the distressed state into which it has been thrown by the 

 predominance of commerce over agriculture. Every step we advance the difficulty 

 will be greater. Remedies are never pleasant : when necessary, however, they should 

 be enforced. "^ 



Grain, the prime necessary of life, must be had; and, if it cannot be grown at 

 the prices hitherto paid, it is sound policy to advance them to what will stimalate 

 the production of a quantity equal to our wants. 



To accomplish this object (should it even be the means of a diminution in our 

 manufactures), the nation would be no loser by it. Our supplying foreign coun- 

 tries with manufactured ajticles depends upon a variety of circumstances. Our 

 demand and consumption of grain is certain. One may cease, the other cannot be 

 dispensed with but by a diminution of our population. Could a more serious 

 misfortune befal the country than to be driven to such an alternative? 



Allowing the prices of grain were such as to make it the interest of the farmer 

 to grow corn extensively, in preference to grazing, or fully on a par with it ; can 

 it be doubted that we should shortly be enabled to raise a sufficiency for our con- 

 sumption ? The profits of tillage, once fully established, would speedily effect a 

 total revolution in the existing system of agriculture. When no longer the interest 

 of the farmer to make use of every possible means of expeditiously turning his 

 lands into grass, expedients would be as assiduously devised for continuing the 

 lands in a fit state for cropping. And I conceive this to be practicable, without 

 injury to the land or reduction of crops ; lor which we have not only the example 

 of China, but the partial practice of different places in this kingdom. There are 

 lands in the neighbourhood of London which have been cropped with potatoes for 

 forty years without interruption. The alternate culture of wheat and beaos is prac- 

 tised in many districts without variation. 



I would not be considered as an advocate for the advance of grain beyond what 

 would afford the giower a full, fair, and adequate return lor his capital and exer- 

 tions : which I do contend has not been tne case in the last ten years, with the 

 exception of those of scarcity. 



