Agricnltvral Statistics. 
595 
questioned whether, with a perfect set of statistics throughout 
the wheat-growing countries of the world, the actual price of 
that article might not remain without serious variation, beyond 
the difference of freight to the importing countries of each year. 
This certainly cannot be doubted, that the annual variation in 
the aggregate produce would be found to diminish in proportion 
as the area included in the calculation was enlarged. 
Some pages back, allusion was made to the advantage derived 
in statistics from the employment of numbers. Great as this is, 
for accuracy of statement, or calculation, their advantage is not 
equally felt in attempting to convey, descriptively, ideas of large 
aggregates. ' A million of acres ' or ' a million quarters of corn ' 
affords a very feeble notion of the comparative quantity intended 
to be expressed ; and great errors have arisen, nowhere more than 
in guesswork estimates of agricultural produce, from the use of 
numerical terms of great magnitude grown familiar to the tongue 
without the means of forming an adequate image in the mind, of 
the aggi'egates named. Numbers, however, afford this compen- 
sation, that they are capable of expression to the eye through the 
medium of geometrical form, superficial or cubical. In one of 
the public galleries of the metropolis we remember seeing some 
years ago an instance of the successful employment of the latter, in 
the form of a glass case about 18 inches long by perhaps 8 wide, 
and 6 in depth, which appeared filled with mustard-seed. Inside 
lay two little cases, models of the larger one, each about ,3 inches 
in length, one filled with white, the other with black seeds of 
similar kind. It was the work of some ingenious person, who, 
wishing to demonstrate the idea of number by mass, undertook 
the laborious task of counting out the population of London, and 
inclosing the result, in this solid form ; the two smaller cases 
respectively representing the mean annual average of births and 
deaths. The idea entombed in the words tu'o millions and a half* 
* At the last census 2,362,236. Some idea may be afforded to the British 
farmer of the food required to supply the vast demand of the metropolis, by saying 
that if the population of Bath, Bedford, Beverley, l?irmingham, Boston, Bridge- 
water, Brighton, Bristol, Bury St. Edmund's, Cambridge, Canterbury, Carlisle, 
Chester, Chesterfield, Cirencester, Colchester, Darlington, Dartmouth, Derby, 
Devizes, Doncaster, Dover, Durham, Ely, Exeter, Gainsborough, Gloucester, 
Grantham, Halifax, Hereford, Hertford, Hudderstield, Huntingdon, Ipswich, 
Kidderminster, Lancaster, Leamington, Leeds, Leicester, Lichfield, Lincoln, 
Liverpool, Manchester, Mansfield, Newark, Newcastle, Northampton, Norwich, 
Nottingham, Peterborough, Plymouth, Ramsgate, Rochester, Salisbury, Scar- 
borough, Shaftesbury, SlielBeld, Shrewsbury, Stafford, Stamford, Taunton, Tim- 
bridge, Wakefield, Warwick, Whitby, Winchester, Worcester, Yarmouth, York, 
were added together, they would not make another London. So rapid is the 
growth of this queen of cities, that a population equal to that of Exeter is added 
to its number every nine months ; but so overwhelmingly large is it, that this c(ra- 
stant and progressive increase is scarcely perceived. Supposing its inhabitants to 
pass out by a single gate four abreast, and as close as they could walk, the 
evacuation of the town would occupy four days and nights ; and supposing tlie 
