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CHAP. XIV.: Of the Productions of the Earth which require a greater or less Number of Men. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 2 The Spirit of Laws [1748]

Edition used:

The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 2.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

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CHAP. XIV.

Of the Productions of the Earth which require a greater or less Number of Men.

PASTURE lands are but little peopled, because they find employment only for a few. Corn lands employ a great many men, and vineyards infinitely more.

It has been a frequent complaint in England* , that the increase of pasture land diminished the inhabitants; and it has been observed in France, that the prodigious number of vineyards is one of the great causes of the multitude of people.

Those countries where coal-pits furnish a proper substance for fuel, have this advantage over others, that not having the same occasion for forests, the lands may be cultivated.

In countries productive of rice, they are at vast pains in watering the land; a great number of men must therefore be employed. Besides, there is less land required to furnish subsistence for a family, than in those which produce other kinds of grain. In fine, the land which is elsewhere employed in raising cattle, serves immediately for the subsistence of man; and the labour, which in other places is performed by cattle, is there performed by men; so that the culture of the soil becomes to man an immense manufacture.

[* ]The greatest number of the proprietors of land, says Bishop Burnet, finding more profit in selling their wool than their corn, inclosed their estates: the commons, ready to perish with hunger, rose up in arms; they insisted on a division of the lands: the young king even wrote on this subject. And proclamations were made against those who inclosed their lands. Abridg. of the Hist. of the Reformation.