localities it has been found that about 18 men, with a small proportion of women, are sufficient to cultivate in the most efficient manner 500 acres of arable land.
Were we to apply this proportion to the 15,832,892 acres of land, under cattle and crops in Ireland, we shall see that some half million of persons would be able to cultivate the entire area.[1] But by the census returns of 1861 the number of adult males engaged in agricultural pursuits in that country are considerably over a million. Consequently, notwithstanding the emigration which has
- ↑ "The extent of land in Ireland, either already cultivated, or capable of cultivation, may be stated at eighteen millions of acres, which, at the rate of one person for every twenty-eight acres, the proportion usual in England, would furnish work for 642,000 male adults."—Thornton's Peasant Proprietors, p. 211. See Appendix, p. 38.
speed of my ship, but at so rapidly increasing a cost of fuel, that the amount of coal expended in obtaining the last half knot exceeds the entire quantity necessary to produce the total velocity previously acquired. Now, though reasonable expedition may increase the profits on my cargo, it would not pay me to buy that expedition at a cost which would reduce those profits to a minimum. In the same way, there must be a point beyond which the increase of produce obtained by the application of additional labour to the soil will be less than sufficient to cover the cost of that labour. To adopt the rate of the gross produce as an unfailing test of the prosperity of the cultivators is therefore fallacious; a high rate of production is quite compatible with small profits and low wages. Whether it is better to subsoil with a plough at £1. 10s per acre, or to trench with spade labour at from £8. to £12. an acre, must be left to the discretion of the individual agriculturist. See Appendix, p. 38.
