VERMIN-KILLERS AND RAT-MATCHES. 
175 
But as other counties may not have so many, suppose v,^e 
set down the smallest number as the average of farm- vermin 
in England, namely 250, with the addition of twice the 
number of mice, which would be 500 ; and if we average 
ten mice to a rat, that will be equal to 300 rats. 
I find, according to the census of 1851, that^ without 
Ireland, there are in Great Britain and the islands in the 
British Seas, 303,720 farmers, and only 2,256 vermin-killers ; 
that is, not one vermin -killer to every 134 farmers. At the 
same time we must bear in mind, that, to say nothing of the 
shipping, all the towns, villages, and hamlets, with all the 
warehouses, factories, and storehouses of all kinds, throughout 
Great Britain and her Channel Islands, would be left without 
a single rat-catcher among them. Then how perfectly 
unequal to the work is the number of rat-catchers ; but 
we will leave them till by-and-by, and go on with the 
calculations. 
This is rather an alarming state of things, still it is only 
averaging the farms at 300 acres each j and supposing them 
to have but one rat, or ten mice, to an acre. In truth, 
it does not signify what size the farms may be, so long 
as we average one rat, or ten mice, to each acre ; but, for 
the sake of calculation, we wdll lump them together, and 
then suppose them to be divided into equal portions of 
three hundred acres ; and what do you suppose would be the 
number of vermin upon the 303,720 farms An amount 
equivalent to 91,116,000 rats! w^hich, at the wine-glass 
standard, would consume 182,232 bushels of corn daily, or 
4,157,167 quarters and four bushels in the half-year, namely, 
182 days and a half; and which would supply 5,831,424 
people with a two-pound loaf each daily for six months, or 
2,915,712 people daily with a two-pound loaf each the year 
round. Or, at ten rats per man, it would support 4,555,800 
people for tw^elve months ; that is, about twice the popula- 
tion of London and its suburbs. 
Let us now see what it would cost in money to feed these 
creatures. Suppose we take grain at the price it is while 
I am writing. Corn is 75^., barley 435., and oats 325. 
per quarter. Let us lump them together, say one-third 
wheat, one-third barley, and one-third oats, and then they 
would average 505. per quarter j then averaging wheat, 
