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of a little of the remainder of the crop of the preceding season,by the time that the greater scarcity of the succeeding crop be-comes absolutely certain, or at least highly probable.
Distilleries may be well considered in the same light, as con-stituting, in effect, an excellent species of granary, inasmuch assthey afford a domestic vent to the produce of a cultivation ex-tended beyond that breadth which is necessary, in ordinary years,to supply the annual subsistence of the people, and consequent-ly an encouragement to cultivate to that extent. When these arestopped in a season of scarcity, they open up, for subsistence,the extra supply of that cultivation which had been enlarged inmaking preparation for their consumption. In this light, horsesand dogs kept for pleasure, if not carried to excess, will not ap-pear objectionable; for though, no doubt, the grain consumedby them in ordinary years, would have supported an additionalnumber of human beings, yet, when a deficiency arrives, youcannot shut up existing human mouths, or suspend their opera-tion, as you can shut up the distillery, or suspend corn laws; andthere is much more danger to be apprehended, from the pinchingof short allowance, from men, than from dogs and horses.
The Brewery may, in this respect, be considered in the samelight as the Distillery , however unusual it may be to considerthem as of the same class —ales being no more necessaries of lifethan ardent spirits. Equally as the Distillery it affords a vent,in years of ordinary plenty for a superabundance, which, uponshutting it up, would produce even a much superior regurgita-tion of supply on the recurrence of scarcity. And the same ob-servations are applicable to the manufacture of grain into starchor hair powder.
The intention and effect of the above-mentioned encourage-ments to agriculture, is to procure a vent, foreign or domestic,(the domestic being preferable, as not dependent on the will ofother nations), for the produce of a cultivation extended beyondwhat is necessary to supply subsistence to the population, in yearsof ordinary plenty; or, what is the same thing, keeping the po-pulation below the level of their means of subsistence, in suchyears, that the produce of this surplus cultivation, when appliedto the purposes of subsistence, may, in cases of deficiency, pre-vent famine.
Another great resource is in the hands of the people at large,which, however obvious, there seems to be a reluctance to per-ceive, because it proceeds upon that steady contemplation of thenaked realities of human life, which is entirely destructive of thosepoetic conceptions, pastoral or romantic, on which the imagina-tion delights to dwell, f It is to abstain from that too speedy
f Of Maltluis’s views it may be said, Durum , sed levins jit patientra quioc orrigere est nefcis —They are hard sayings; but we must bear them.