56 Slaney on Rural Expenditure. 



bringing to market an acre of wheat is nearly double that of am 

 acre of other corn. This change in husbandry affects in a re- 

 markable degree the means of employment. The general con- 

 sumption of wheaten bread was unknown among the working 

 classes till the middle of the last century. In the history of 

 Norwich, it is recorded among the remarkable events, that ' in 

 1745 fine flour, from Hertfordshire, was retailed in Norwich, be- 

 fore which time a coarse household bread, inferior to meal, was 

 the general bread used in the city and county.' Barley bread 

 was till that time as common as it is now in some parts of Wales. 

 Till that period, scarcely any wheat was grown in this part of the 

 country. Within the last thirty years not more than 30 or 40 

 acres of wheat were grown in this parish, and now there are 

 between 300 and 400 acres. The growth of this corn favourably 

 affects the condition of the peasantry, by supplying a large quan- 

 tity of gleaning as well as work. The thirty families belonging 

 to this parish have the gleaning of three or four hundred acres of 

 wheat, and many of the families collect from 8 to 12 and even 

 16 bushels. The earnings of the women and children by this 

 means have often amounted to more than the earnings of the 

 labourer himself in harvest, when his wages are the highest. 

 Since the commencement of the present century, the increased 

 production of wheat has been enormous. The number of quarters 

 returned to the Inspector of Corn Returns for Norwich, for the 

 first 21 years of this century, will demonstrate this. In 1801 

 there were returned 17,159 quarters ; in 1814, 34,007, or double 

 that quantity; and in 1821, 78,219, or more than four-fold the 

 number of quarters." 



That the condition of agricultural labourers at present, 

 as compared with that of manufacturing labourers, is much 

 worse than it was one or two centuries ago, will not, we think, 

 be disputed by any one. The simple and obvious facts of the 

 great and rapid increase of our manufactures; of the im- 

 mense capital at present employed in them, whereas a cen- 

 tury ago, there was little or no capital employed in any 

 besides the woollen manufacture ; and the dense and numer- 

 ous population of the manufacturing districts of Lancashire, 

 and the West Riding of Yorkshire ; districts naturally barren, 

 and formerly thinly peopled ; — these and other facts indicate or 

 imply a wonderful stimulus given to our manufactures ; and, 

 consequently, as one consequence of that stimulus, such an 

 increase of wages as would attract, and has, in reality, attracted 

 to the manufacturing districts, the population with which they 

 at present abound. It is no reply to this position, to appeal 

 to the fact, that manufacturing wages are liable to great and 

 sudden fluctuations, and that, sometimes, they are extremely 

 low : they are so ; but, taking an average of three, four, or five 



