f 199 } 



prefent in England, is, I think, plainly a 

 miftake. 



Large flocks in every bufinefs are at- 

 tended with conliderable profit : It is lb 

 in commerce, in manufactures, in mop- 

 keeping, and in every other branch of 

 traffic ; it mull: confequently be the fame 

 in agriculture. To fuppofe that a man 

 is to employ fifteen or twenty thouiand 

 pounds in farming, and not make conli- 

 derable profits, is an abfurdity. Now the 

 exiftence of a few great farms, that are 

 cultivated at much expence, and of courfe 

 with a conliderable profit, give rife to a 

 feries of notions of monopolizing farms ; 

 and of the immenfe profits of hufbandry, 

 till the fubject becomes a ftanding-diih at 

 every table; though perhaps there are not 

 ten great farms in half a county : One or 

 two probably are formed by an union of 

 feveral fmall ones ; only one farmer lives 

 where five or fix lived before : Ergo, fays 

 common talk, nine-tenths of the kingdom 

 are nlonopolized and depopulated. It is 

 furprizing how few inftances, in any thing 

 out of the common road, are fufficient to 

 raife a clamour of lies and abfurdity among 

 the vulgar, until they are lifiened to even 

 by the legiilature itfelf. In the counties 

 of Worccjier and Northumberland, for in- 

 O 4 fiance, 



