Ch. xiv. General Observations. 249 



and barren territory; and the melioration of the 

 land might perhaps never take place ; or, if it did,' 

 it would take place very slowly indeed, and the 

 population would always be exactly measured by 

 this tardy rate, and could not possibly increase 

 beyond it. 



This subject is illustrated in the cultivation of 

 the Campine in Brabant, which, according to the 

 Abb6 Mann,* consisted originally of the most 

 barren and arid sand. Many attempts were made 

 by private individuals to bring it under cultivation, 

 but without success; which proves, that, as a 

 farming project, and considered as a sole depend- 

 ence, the cultivation of it would not answer. 

 Some religious houses, however, at last settled 

 there ; and being supported by other funds, and 

 improving the land merely as a secondary object, 

 they by degrees, in the course of some centuries, 

 brought nearly the whole under cultivation, let- 

 ting it out to farmers as soon as it was sufficiently 

 improved. 



There is no spot, however barren, which might 

 not be made rich this way, or by the concentrated 

 population of a manufacturing town ; but this is 

 no proof whatever that, with respect to population 

 and food, population has the precedence ; because 

 this concentrated population could not possibly 

 exist without the preceding existence of an ade- 



* Memoir on the Agriculture of the Netherlands, published in 

 vol. i. of Communications to the Board of Agriculture, p. 22.5. 



