MARKETS. 153 



and Bakewell made their appearance, only to apply the 

 new ideas to agriculture. 



The system of Arthur Young is very simple ; it is 

 comprehended in one word, the meaning of which was 

 fixed by Adam Smith Markets. Up to that time the 

 English farmers had, like all those of the Continent, 

 worked with little view to a market. Most agricultural 

 productions were consumed on the spot by the producers 

 themselves, and although in England more was sold for 

 consumption beyond the farm than anywhere else, it was 

 not export which regulated production. Arthur Young 

 was the first who made the English agriculturists under- 

 stand the increasing importance of a market ; that is to 

 say, the sale of agricultural produce to a population not 

 contributing to produce it. This non-agricultural popu- 

 lation, which up to that time was inconsiderable, began 

 to develop, and since then its increase has been immense, 

 owing to the expansion of manufactures and commerce. 



Everybody knows what enormous progress the em- 

 ployment of steam, as a motive power, has effected in 

 British manufactures and commerce during the last fifty 

 years. The principal seat of this amazing activity is in 

 the north-west of England, the county of Lancaster, and 

 its neighbour, the West Riding of Yorkshire. There Man- 

 chester works cotton, Leeds wool, Sheffield iron, and the 

 port of Liverpool, with its constant current of exports 

 and imports, feeds an indefatigable production ; there an 

 incessant excavation goes on of that subterranean world, 

 appropriately called by the English their Black Indies 

 an immense reservoir of coal which covers several coun- 

 ties with its ramifications, and throws up in all direc- 

 tions its inexhaustible treasures. The quantity of coal 

 annually raised is estimated at forty millions of tons; 

 this, at 10s. per ton, is equal to twenty millions ster- 



