3 1 2 Mr. William Pitt on the Production and 



would be equally laudable and agreeable, and I believe in general much more profit- 

 able, than the improvement of their mansions and demesnes, and tend greatly to the 

 advantage of the community. All grass land ought to be improved to a state fit for 

 mowing, either for hay or to cany as green food to live stock in stalls, and should 

 be either improved to this state, or cultivated for corn; and if larger capitals were 

 employed in cultivation, the business might be rendered more regular and sys- 

 tematic, and grain most probably cheaper grown. 



As a country will support a much greater population upon a vegetable diet than 

 upon animal food, that regimen should be promoted; but as litde can be done by 

 authority in this way generally, I think it ought to be a regulation in all congregated 

 bodies maintained by charity or the public, that they live two days in every week 

 principally on soups, puddings, or preparations of milk, potatoes, and vegetables, 

 or with but a small allowance of animal food ; with the same view fisheries should 

 have all due encouragement; I have often thought Lent, and the fasts of the church, 

 were wise political regulations, and lament their abolition or neglect; when the 

 consciences of mankind were biassed by religious insdtutions to a regimen favour- 

 able to health and plenty, such bias should have been supported, if not from reli- 

 gious, yet from political motives. 



If the quantity of beverage from fruit could be increased, so as to lessen the 

 consumption of malt liquor, it would increase the resources for human sustenance. 

 To shew the extravagant tendency of barley for beverage, I shall just state that I 

 know individuals who would easily consume annually the malt liquor made from 

 two acres of barley ; and that many individuals do actually consume between one 

 and two acres- The annual consumption of barley ground in beverage has been 

 before stated at about a million and a half of acres ; if this could be considerably 

 lessened, by the introduction of beverage from fruit, though it might lessen tlie 

 revenue, it would certainly increase the means of human subsistence. 



The production of fruit interferes but litde with that of either corn or grass, I 

 therefore consider the extension of the growth of this article, so as to lessen that of 

 barley, as a national object. 



