Essai sur la police générale des grains, sur leurs prix & sur les effets de l'agriculture.

A Berlin, 1757. iv, xviii, 435, (1) pp. 12mo. Contemporary marbled calf, spine richly gilt with raised bands, gilt lettering, red edges. Higgs 1474; Kress 5617 (incomplete copy); Weulersse, i, xx; this edition not in Goldsmiths, Einaudi & INED. The best edition. Including the 'Arrêt du Conseil d'Etat du Roi, qui, entr'autres dispositions, ordonne que le commerce de toute espèce de grains sera libre entièrement par terre et par les rivières, de province à province, dans l'intérieur du Royaume. Du 17 Septembre 1754', to which referrence is made in the Avertissement. The basic importance of agriculture in the life of the French nation was equally emphasized by C.J. Herbert, who held labor and land to be the primary resources of a nation, and agriculture its basic industry. Upon agriculture depended a nation's power and wealth, its ability to colonize, the fruitfulness of its commerce, and the capacity of its territory to support population. Having demonstrated the basic importance of agriculture to the political and economic strength of France, Herbert indicated that French agriculture was languishing, and its revivification was essential to the aggrandizement of the nation and to the felicity of its inhabitants; ..... Herbert advocated the improvement of grain markets and prices through inauguration of the right to export grain, modifications in the tax system, and the establishment of a research bureau to discover how agriculture could be improved, and why some provinces were more favorable to agriculture, manufacturing, and population growth than others. (Spengler, French predecessors of Malthus, pp. 67-72). Valuable work, cited with praise by Adam Smith.