Statistics . 279 
one acre be required for 22 1-2 dollars worth of food, 55 dollars 
worth will require very nearly two acres and a half. 
But where in good cultivation, a wheat crop cannot occur more 
than once in four years, interposing rye, oats, and clove^, land that 
will produce eighteen bushels under usual culture, will not yield 
upon the average of a four year’s crop more than the value of 
fourteen bushels. This will bring the quantity of land required in 
Cumberland county necessary to supply a labouring man there, 
with food and drink for a year, to three acres : the fractions in this 
calculation compensating for those in the preceding. 
A man must have not only food to support him, but cloaths to 
cover him, and a dwelling to defend him from the inclemency of 
the seasons. 
The dress of a labouring man cannot be estimated annually at 
less than 25 dollars in this part of the country : he must have a 
hat, a couple of cravats, a couple of shirts, a couple of pair of 
stockings, two pair of shoes, a coat, jacket, and pantaloons and 
two pocket handkerchiefs per annum. 
He must have a habitation which will cost him not less than 
five dollars a year. 
Hence if 55 dollars require three acres, SO dollars will require 
upwards of one acre and a half. To maintain a labouring man 
then, free in Cumberland county, will require not less than four 
acres and a half of cleared ground producing an average crop 
worth at leat fourteen dollars in the market.— It is true that every 
man, woman and child, will not consume as much food as a labour- 
ing man, but the expences of the more expensive ranks of society, 
will more than compensate for this. If a labouring man spends 
necessarily at the lowest rate 85 dollars a year, the average of the 
community, can hardly be estimated at less than 1 10 or 1 12 dollars, 
(about 25/. sterling) which will demand eight acres per head pro- 
ducing as above to support each man, woman and child in the 
county. 
In other parts of the United States, the cheapness of land-pro- 
duce, and of course the cheapness of living, compensate each 
other: so that although the calculation in dollars will be affected, 
the calculation in land will not : hence eight acres of cleared land 
at least, are necessary to the maintenance of every human being in 
the United States upon the average. The present proportion 
therefore of about eight millions will require about sixty-four mil- 
lions of cleared acres. If the weight of grain, fiesh, and home- 
