The 500 farmers feed 1000; and we suppose the lands laboured as in a good English farm. One of the society proposes to augment the number of inhabitants by introducing a more operose species of agriculture, the produce of which may be _absolutely_ greater, though relatively less. The first question the statesman would naturally put to this reformer would be, What is your view in increasing the number of our inhabitants, is it to defend us against our enemies, is it to supply the wants of strangers, and thereby to enrich ourselves, is it to supply our own _wants_ with more abundance, or is it to provide us more abundantly with _food_? I can hardly find out any other rational view in wishing for an additional number of people in any country whatsoever. Let it be answered, that all these ends may be thereby obtained: and now let us examine how far this reformation upon agriculture will have the effect of increasing inhabitants, how far such increase will procure the ends proposed, and how far the execution of such a plan is a practicable scheme to an industrious people. If the inhabitants be not sufficiently fed, which is the only thing that can prevent their multiplication, it must proceed from one of two causes. Either _first_, that those do procreate who cannot produce an equivalent for the food of their children; or _secondly_, that industry making a quicker progress than agriculture, the industrious come too strongly in competition with one another, for the surplus of food to be found; which has the effect of raising the prices of it, and reducing the portions too low to suffer a division; and thereby of preventing marriage and multiplication in the lower classes of the free hands. In the first case, it is to no purpose to increase the produce of agriculture, by rendering it more expensive; for those who have no equivalent to give when food is cheap, will still be in greater necessity when it rises in the price. In the second case, it is to no purpose to diminish the surplus of the farmers, because the supposition proves that the balance is already too heavy upon the side of the free hands, that is, that the surplus of the farmers is already become insufficient fully to feed them. Two remedies may be proposed for this inconveniency, the one tending to population, the other to depopulation; and as the end to be compassed is to set the balance even between husbandmen and free hands, I shall explain both, and point out _how far_ from principles it appears, that in either way the end may be attained.