CHAP. XXI.

INCREASE OF WEALTH.

137

addition to their numbers of at least forty on thehundred. Now the bare subsistence of this in-creased population, even in exactly the same man-ner as their ancestors had lived, would require anaugmentation in the commodities which were thesubject of exchange commensurate with the in-crease of their numbers, and to circulate suchcommodities, an addition of money at the rate offorty per cent.

But mankind in Europe did not continue to liveas their ancestors had done. In the course of thecentury the production of necessaries, of comforts,and of luxuries had proceeded with more speedthan the progress of population. The prohibitionwhich existed in the time of Elizabeth, againstconverting arable land into pasture, had becomeobsolete in England. More cattle were rearedand fattened, and by the manure they supplied tothe soil more corn was produced on the sameportion of land with less labour, and thus labourerswere gradually furnished for other branches of in-dustry. The author of Fleta, who wrote in thereign of Edward I. , says, “ that if land yieldedonly three times the seed sown, the farmer wouldbe a loser unless corn should sell dear.” Sir JohnCullum, in an account given of a farm in Norfolk ,states the produce in the year 1390 to have beenwheat six bushels, barley twelve bushels, and oatsonly five bushels : that year was indeed an unpro-ductive one, and he rates the average annual pro-