2.5 



my inquiries, both among cultivators and merchants, 

 to conclude that very little Corn remained in the 

 hands of the growers, except in the very rare cases, 

 where in the same person was united a confident 

 expectation of an advance in the prices, with a 

 sufficiency of capital to enable him to withhold from 

 making sales. 



The circumstances of far the greater number of the 

 occupiers of land were too much embarrassed to allow 

 of their keeping Corn, when the importunities of 

 claimants upon them were urgent for the discharge of 

 their demands. The general accounts were, that all 

 which could be sold had, from necessity, been turned 

 into money. In some of the small towns in Prussia, 

 when movements of the troops were making, and 

 a squadron of cavalry on a march was quartered on 

 them for a day, so little horse Com was to be found 

 in the granaries, that the standing Oats were cut and 

 given to the horses, as they were taken from the fields. 



When in Berlin, I was told by Baron Von Bulow, 

 Minister of the Interior, that the Government had 

 recently instituted inquiries into the stocks of Corn in 

 the country ; and the result of those inquiries showed, 

 that the quantity in the whole cf Prussia was much 

 smaller than usual. 



A very intelligent writer, a part of \\hose Memoir 

 (sec Appendix, No. 9) I have translated, states the 

 whole quantity of Corn in the different countries of 

 Europe, at 3,680,000 quarters. He includes in his 

 estimate, Rye, Oats, and Barley, as well as Wheat, 

 noticing the portions of each, which make up his 

 total. Without attaching any great credit to the 

 calculation, I allude to it because his views are those 

 which I found commonly entertained among: the more 



* o 



intelligent cultivators, of whom, though writing ano- 

 nymously, he was said to be one. 



I made it my particular business to enquire into 

 the state of the stocks at the warehouses on the banks 

 of the Vistula, where Corn is collected, until a suffici- 



