.92 



who is-, a cultivator of his own estates, and has offici- 

 ally paid attention to a subject which has become 

 of the highest importance to every public officer, and 

 every landed proprietor. 



It is worthy of remark, that the present burdens 

 on the land are quite as great as existed during any 

 period of the twenty-four years whose prices are 

 quoted ; and that the heaviest of these burdens, the 

 tenth Groschen tax, was not collected in the earlier 

 years of the series. It was originally a war tax, but 

 (as before stated) has been continued through the 

 ten years that have passed since the peace was con- 

 cluded. The expenses of cultivation have been 

 undoubtedly somewhat reduced with the reduction 

 of the selling prices of the produce ; thus the cost of 

 seed, and of the food of working cattle, if valued in 

 money, would appear to be less ; but they can scarcely 

 affect the cultivator, who raises them and consumes 

 them, as he only can derive a profit or incur a loss 

 according to the high or low price of that surplus 

 quantity which he sells at market. 



I am disposed, under all circumstances of the case, 

 to pay much attention to the estimations I have 

 related, which were also corroborated by the opinions 

 of most of the cultivators with whom I conversed. 

 With as much confidence as can be felt on a subject 

 which no investigation could have made very clear, I 

 should suppose the cost of Wheat in the province of 

 Massovia to have been nearly between twenty-seven 

 and twenty-nine shillings the quarter, for the last 

 thirty years. Assuming that the cost price of Wheat 

 was at the medium, between the points to which in 

 its fluctuations it had approached, we may calculate 

 the cost in England, thus : 



