282 
Statistics . 
ma! and vegetable food consumed in the French metropolis 
about the time of the revolution, as tolerably applicable to Great 
Britain. 
<c The data for such a calculation were very numerous in France, 
where every province has been accurately surveyed, the popula- 
tion of every district regularly registered, and the consumption 
of the towns minutely ascertained, by means of the entrance duty 
collected at the gates. The calculators, amongst whom were 
Lavoisier and La Grange, were men of undoubted science, and 
the result of their labours is, that the annual food of each inhabi- 
tant, as deduced from the population at Paris, amounts to 642 
French pounds, (693 English) of which the vegetable food, includ- 
ing corn, potatoes, fruit, and garden esculents of all sorts, forms 
435lbs. (469 English,) and the animal food, comprehending meat, 
fish, butter, eggs, cheese, k c. 207'lbs. (224 English.) Now, if it 
be considered that the extent of pasture land in Great Britain is, 
at least, ten times as great as that of wheat land; that this pasture 
is, from the moisture of our climate, remarkably fertile, and that 
our insular situation must supply us with a much larger portion 
of fish than our French neighbours can easily attain, it may rea- 
sonably be presumed that the estimate which allots a quarter of 
wheat to the subsistence of each person, probably exaggerates, by 
about one third, the real consumption of grain in this country, and 
reduces, in the same degree, the amount of our whole annual sus- 
tenance. 
K This proportion will, of course, vary in different districts, in 
different classes, and in different seasons ; but, in general, there 
is reason to hope and believe that the ratio of the more nutritious 
to the less valuable species of food, is still increasing in the gene- 
ral consumption ; that wheat continues to supplant the inferior 
sorts of grain, and that the comforts of the poor are more widely 
diffused. Of wheat, indeed, it is impossible to state with accu- 
racy the annual produce, but the inference may be indirectly prov- 
ed by the augmented consumption of the food afforded to us by 
our colonial agriculture. On an average of ten years, ending in 
.1801, the mean annual consumption of sugar was between 177 
and 178 millions of pounds, which, divided by the amount of the 
population, (10,942,646) gives 16lbs. as the consumption of each 
individual in Great Britain. By a similar calculation on the next 
ten years, we find the consumption augmented to between 1 9 and 
20lbs. for each person, the annual average being 240,800,000lbs. 
and the population 12,352,144. This is exclusive of the distille- 
