supply inpr Milk for the Poor. 145 



manufactories, has united with other causes to enhance the price of labour, and 

 operated as a further check upon agriculture. 



The great acquisition, and general diffusion, of wealth has been the cause of 

 multiplying the nunnber of pleasure horses. The very improvements in agriculture 

 have made a large proportional number of horses necessary, which has been 

 further increased by the obligation of performing a great deal of work by horses ; 

 not only from the want of labourers in some districts, but also from the advance in 

 the price of labour. The additional number of pleasure and agricultural horses has 

 been the means of consuming the produce of a considerable portion of the best 

 acres in the kingdom, and has had a powerful influence in diminishing the growth 

 of bread corn. 



I am confidently of opinion that a million and a half of acres might be spared 

 from the pastures appropriated for the support of horses and cattle, and applied to 

 the production of grain. In confirmation of this persuasion, I beg to state in 

 the first place, what I conceive to be the quantity of land employed in the mainte- 

 nance of the various descriptions of horses. By the returns to the tax office we are 

 enabled to ascertain it with tolerable accuracy the number of horses in Great 

 Britain. 



The saving which might be made in feeding of cattle must rest upon conjecture, 

 as we have no accurate criterion. The trials I have made justify the supposition 

 of its admitting of very great retrenchment. 



The number of horses that are entered and pay the duty amounts to 1,178,000, 

 as appears from the returns of the tax office ; and if we add those exempted as 

 belonging to the army, &c. make allowance for the occasional evasion of the tax, 

 we shall not much err in taking the total number at two hundred thousand : nine 

 hundred thousand and upwards, of husbandry and draught horses are entered ; and 

 making the proper allowance for exemptions, and for such as may not have been 

 returned, we may, I conceive, fairly estimate them at one million. — Suppose then 

 200,000 pleasure horses require - 6 acres each, or 1,200,000 

 30,000 cavalry - - 5 acres 150,000 



1,000,000 husbandry and draught horses 4 acres . 4,000,000 

 200,000 colts, brood mares, &c. - 3 acres - 600,000 



horses 1,430,000 5.950,000 acres. 



VOL. V. U 



