all over the kingdom, are susceptible of a degree of improvement,
which it is by no means easy to fix, but which certainly offers a
great prospective increase of produce. There is even a chance (but
on this I will not insist) of a diminution in the real price of
corn,(9*) owing to the extension of those great improvements, and
that great economy and good management of labour, of which we have
such intelligent accounts from Scotland.(10*) If these clay lands,
by draining, and the plentiful application of lime and other
manures, could be so far meliorated in quality as to admit of being
worked by two horses and a single man, instead of three or four
horses with a man and a boy, what a vast saving of labour and
expense would at once be effected, at the same time that the crops
would be prodigiously increased! And such an improvement may
rationally be expected, from what has really been accomplished in
particular districts. In short, if merely the best modes of
cultivation, now in use in some parts of Great Britain, were
generally extended, and the whole country was brought to a level, in
proportion to its natural advantages of soil and situation, by the
further accumulation and more equable distribution of capital and
skill; the quantity of additional produce would be immense, and
would afford the means of subsistence to a very great increase of
population.

In some countries possessed of a small territory, and consisting
perhaps chiefly of one or two large cities, it never can be made a
question, whether or not they should freely import foreign corn.
They exist, in fact, by this importation; and being always, in point
of population, inconsiderable, they may, in general, rely upon a
pretty regular supply. But whether regular or not, they have no
choice. Nature has clearly told them, that if they increase in