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Particular circumstances have sometimes rendered some countries

so populous, that the whole territory, like the lands in the

neighbourhood of a great town, has not been sufficient to produce

both the grass and the corn necessary for the subsistence of

their inhabitants. Their lands, therefore, have been principally

employed in the production of grass, the more bulky commodity,

and which cannot be so easily brought from a great distance; and

corn, the food of the great body of the people, has been chiefly

imported from foreign countries. Holland is at present in this

situation; and a considerable part of ancient Italy seems to have

been so during the prosperity of the Romans. To feed well, old

Cato said, as we are told by Cicero, was the first and most

profitable thing in the management of a private estate; to feed

tolerably well, the second; and to feed ill, the third. To

plough, he ranked only in the fourth place of profit and

advantage.