250 General Observations. Bk. iii. 



quate quantity of food in the surplus produce of 

 some other district. 



In a country like Brabant or Holland, where 

 territory is the principal want, and not manure, 

 such a district as the Campine is described to be 

 may perhaps be cultivated with advantage. But 

 in countries possessed of a large territory, and 

 with a considerable quantity of land of a middling 

 quality, the attempt to cultivate such a spot would 

 be a palpable misdirection and waste both of indi- 

 vidual and national resources. 



The French have already found their error in 

 bringing under cultivation too great a quantity of 

 poor land. They are now sensible, that they 

 have employed in this way a portion of labour 

 and dressing, which would have produced a per- 

 manently better effect, if it had been applied to 

 the further improvement of better land. Even in 

 China, which is so fully cultivated and so fully 

 peopled, barren heaths have been noticed in some 

 districts, which proves that, distressed as the 

 people appear to be for subsistence, it does not 

 answer to them to employ any of their manure on 

 such spots. These remarks will be still further 

 confirmed, if we recollect that, in the cultivation 

 of a large surface of bad land, there must neces- 

 sarily be a great waste of seed corn. 



We should not therefore be too ready to make 

 inferences against the internal economy of a 

 country from the appearance of uncultivated 

 heaths, without other evidence. But the fact is, 



