of the obstacles to commerce, that, as we here see, the annual augmentation of the value of the products of agriculture was thrice greater than it before had been.*

It is in the fourth and last, however, that we find something approaching a realization of the anticipations of Colbert, in an annual average increase in the money value of the products of the farm, amounting to no less than a hundred millions of francs, or twenty millions of dollars; and in a total annual product exceeding five thousand millions of francs, against less than three thousand millions, twenty-seven years before. The return to the labor employed in cultivation had therefore almost doubled, and

* Under such a system as that described in the preceding note, manufactures could scarcely thrive, nor could a market be made for the products of labor given to the work of cultivation. How this latter was itself impeded, is shown in the following passage, which, however, exhibits but a small portion of the feudal oppressions under which the people labored:

"The most important operations of agriculture were fettered or prevented by the game-laws, and the restrictions intended for their support. Game of the most destructive kind, such as wild boars and herds of deer, were permitted to go at large through large districts called Capitaneries, without any enclosures to protect the crops. The damage they did to the farmers, in four parishes of Montceau only, amounted to 184,000 francs, or £8000, a year. Numerous edicts existed which prohibited hoeing and weeding, lest the young partridges should be disturbed; mowing hay, lest the eggs should be destroyed; taking away the stubble, lest the birds should be deprived of shelter; manuring with night soil, lest their flavor should be injured. Complaints for the infraction of these edicts were all carried before the manorial courts, where every species of oppression, chicanery, and fraud were prevalent. Nothing can exceed the force of expression used in the cahiers of the provincial bodies, in describing the severity of these feudal services. Fines were imposed at every change of property, in the direct and collateral line; at every sale, to purchasers; the people were bound to grind their corn at the landlord's mill, press their grapes at his press, and bake their bread at his oven. Corvées, or obligations to repair the roads, founded on custom, decrees, and servitude, were enforced with the most rigorous severity: in many places the use even of handmills was not free, and the seigneurs were invested with the power of selling to the peasants the right of bruising buckwheat or barley between two stones. It is vain to attempt a description of the feudal services which pressed with so much severity upon industry in every part of France. Their names cannot find parallel words in the English language. Long before the Revolution broke out, complaints were loudly heard over the whole country of the exterminating tendency of these feudal exactions. They became better understood by the higher classes as it advanced, from the clamor which was raised by the nobility at their abolition.

“The Corvées, or burdens imposed for the maintenance of the highways, annually ruined vast numbers of the farmers. In filling up one valley in Lorraine, no less than three hundred were reduced to beggary. The enrolments for the militia were also the subject of grievous complaint, and styled in the cahiers, an injustice without example.' But the people soon found that they had made a grievous exchange in substituting for it the terrible conscription of Napoleon."-ALISON: History of Europe, vol. i. p. 83.

yet the number among whom it was to be divided had increased less than twenty-five per cent.-the population having grown from 29,000,000 to 36,000,000.

§ 6. In the facts above given we find evidence of a constant acceleration of production resulting from increase of numbers, and from increased activity of circulation consequent upon the diminution of that prime obstacle to the growth of commerce which consists in the necessity for effecting changes of place.

Thus far, however, they have referred to the money value alone -no mention having yet been made of the quantity of things produced; and we may therefore turn to the same authority with a view to see how far the change in the former has been due to that effected in the latter. Doing this, we find that whereas, in the period which followed the expulsion of the Huguenots and the decline of manufactures, the average production of cereals declined from eight to seven hectolitres per hectare, it rose, in the last one, from eight, at which it stood in 1813, to more than thirteen being an increase of no less than sixty-two and a half per cent.*

The change in the quantity of the several kinds of food is given in the following passage from a recent work of much ability, by which it is shown, that the supply has grown twice more rapidly than population; and that, therefore, the Malthusian theory finds small support in the course of events in France :—

"For the cereals, our agricultural statistics give the following figures:

which gives, per head, in 1760, 450 litres of cereals of all kinds, and in 1840, 541 litres. This, however, is not all the quality being as much superior as the quantity.

"In 1760, we had but 31,000,000 of hectares of wheat, whereas in 1840 we have 70,000,000. Deducting the seed, we could feed

*DE JONNÈS: Statistique, p. 45.

† A litre is about 12 pints, and a hectolitre is 22 gallons.

entirely with wheat nineteen millions of people, when, a century since, we could not have fed seven millions.

"In addition to all this, we have a culture that is altogether new, that of the potato, which occupies nearly a million of hectares, and yields 96,000,000 of hectolitres. Further, we have 3,000,000 of dried vegetables, leaving altogether out of view the garden vegetables, the fruits, and many other of the products of the earth. Thus far we have, per head

This is a great change, and yet it is but a part of what has been effected. The policy of Colbert, in seeking to diversify the modes of agricultural employment, having been carried out by Napoleon in reference to sugar, the result is seen in the fact, that France has now more than a hundred thousand acres devoted to the culture of the beet-root- producing sugar to the amount of sixty or seventy millions of francs, equal to twelve or fourteen millions of dollars; and so cheaply is it supplied, that the sugar of the colonies finds itself now forced to implore protection against the domestic manufacture.

In 1812, the total amount of silk cocoons produced, but little exceeded 5,000,000 kilogrammes; now, it exceeds 25,000,000, with a value of a hundred millions of francs, or twenty millions of dollars.

France has now 32,000,000 of sheep, against 27,000,000 in 1813, and 20,000,000 in 1789;§ but the improvement in quality has been far greater than that in quantity — the demand from the constantly growing woollen manufacture, having offered a large bounty upon the devotion of time, mind, and means to the improvement of the race.

Cloth has steadily declined in price, while wool has much

That the change here indicated is still in rapid progress, is shown by the fact that while the average product of wheat in the years 1842-1818 was only 72,000,000 hectolitres, that of 1847-1851 was no less than $5,000,000. DE FONTENAY: Du Revenu Foncier, p. 82.

LAVERGNE: Journal des Economistes, March, 1856.
DE JONNES: Statistique, p. 441.

thus

The

advanced; and the corn that a century since would command but twelve and a half francs, was worth nineteen francs in the period ending in 1840. The prices of the raw material and of the finished commodity are steadily approximating each other affording the strongest evidence of advance in civilization. consequences of the increase of quantity, and of price, are seen in the fact that whereas, eighty years since, the average money value of the produce of an acre of land was 87 francs, it has since risen to no less than 237 - having almost trebled.*

We see, thus, that much of the augmented money value results from increase in quantity, and most especially from increase in those bulky products of the earth that will not bear transportation to distant markets. A further portion of it is consequent upon the increased utility of many portions of the produce, resulting from the existence of a market near at hand. Thus, the wheat straw, alone, is valued at 393,000,000 of francs, or nearly $80,000,000; and the total value of the straw of France at 761,000,000 of francs-$150,000,000— being more than the total value of the cotton crop of the United States, which occupies, so nearly exclusively, the land of no less than ten of our States, and furnishes almost the whole employment of so many millions of our people.

§ 7. The general effect of the changes above described will be * Ibid. p. 94.

"All those of us who are forty years of age, have seen a sensible diminution in the prices of garden vegetables, fruits of all descriptions, flowers, &c. -in those of most of the oleaginous seeds, and of the plants used in manufactures. Some of our vegetables, as, for instance, the beet-root, the carrot, beans, and pens, have become so common that they are used for feeding cattle."-DE FONTENAY: Du Revenu Foncier, p. 86.

At first sight, this might seem to be in opposition to the general idea of the gradual tendency to increase in the power of the products of the land to command money in exchange; but, when considered, the difficulty is only an apparent one. All the plants above referred to, are those whose cultivation comes with improvement in the state of agriculture, and development of the agricultural mind; and most of them have been introduced into the countries of Europe in which they now are raised. Had Louis XIV. desired a dish of boiled potatoes, he would have found it as expensive as would have been one of ortolans because of the distance from which they must have been brought, and consequent cost of transportation. Being now naturalized, and universally cultivated, they obey the same law as wheat, and in a manner much more marked-selling, when close to market, so high as to afford the largest remuneration to the farmer, and when distant from it, so low as to afford him little or no compensation for his labor or for the use of his land. Such, too, is the case with all the products above referred to.

found in the following brief summary of the contents of an extended article, communicated by M. de Jonnès to the Annuaire de l'Economie Politique et Statistique, for 1851; for which we are indebted to a work to which the reader's attention has already frequently been called :-*

"The inquiry extends back to the period of Louis XIV., embracing the experience of one hundred and fifty years, divided, for the purposes of comparison, into five periods. The facts, as condensed in a tabular form, are as follows:

"The first table contains a statement of the aggregate expenditure, at different periods, for the cultivation of the soil of France, (excluding the value of the seed,) in millions of francs- of the proportion which the sum total of wages bore to the whole value of the product of the soil—and of the amount of such expenditure per head to the actual population of the kingdom at each epoch, as follows: :

"The following statement gives the division of wages among the agricultural families of the kingdom at the same period, upon the estimate that they averaged four and a half persons to a family, giving the annual wages of each family, and the amount per day for each family :—

"M. de Jonnès compares these prices of labor with those of

wheat, for the purpose of seeing how far they would go in the

* SMITH: Manual of Political Economy, pp. 94–100.

"The centime is the hundredth part of a franc, or about one-fifth of cent: the sou is five centimes, or about one cent."