tate of the other countries of the continent.(8*)

In looking, in the first place, at the resources of the country,
with a view to an independent supply for an increasing population;
and comparing subsequently the advantages of the two systems
abovementioned, without overlooking their disadvantages, I have
fully made up my mind as to the side on which the balance lies; and
am decidedly of opinion, that a system of restrictions so calculated
as to keep us, in average years, nearly independent of foreign
supplies of corn, will more effectually conduce to the wealth and
prosperity of the country, and of by far the greatest mass of the
inhabitants, than the opening of our ports for the free admission of
foreign corn, in the actual state of Europe.

Of the resources of Great Britain and Ireland for the further growth
of corn, by the further application of capital to the land, the
evidence laid before parliament furnishes the most ample testimony.
But it is not necessary, for this purpose, to recur to evidence that
may be considered as partial. All the most intelligent works which
have been written on agricultural subjects of late years, agree in
the same statements; and they are confirmed beyond a possibility of
doubt, when we consider the extraordinary improvements, and
prodigious increase of produce that have taken place latterly in
some districts, which, in point of natural soil, are not superior to
others that are still yielding the most scanty and miserable crops.
Most of the light soils of the kingdom might, with adequate capital
and skill, be made to equal the improved parts of Norfolk; and the
vast tracts of clay lands that are yet in a degraded state almost
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 t