Causes of the scarcity investigated: also an account of the most striking Variations in the Weather, From October, 1798, to September, 1800. To which is prefix'd, the price of wheat, every year, From 1600 to the present Aera.
Stamford.
Printed and sold by R. Newcomb, [1800].
First edition.
8vo.
[8], 52pp. Modern brown paper boards, contrasting red morocco lettering-piece to spine. A trifle marked. Partial erasure of first line of p.37 in an early hand.
The sole edition of a provincially published pamphlet investigating the effects of inclement weather on crop yields in Britain in the closing years of the eighteenth century.
The Monthly Review (February, 1801) received the work favourably: 'We have no doubt Mr. Hopkinson has suggested one of the concurrent causes of scarcity;- we say concurrent because the present high prices do not spring from one solitary source. Every gentleman will recollect the destruction made by severe winters, among the tender shrubs of his ornamental plantations: scarcely an arbutus has survived; and to winters of extreme cold have succeeded unfavourable springs and summers, and one very wet autumn: all of which must have tended to obstruct or to spoil the produce of the earth. Diminution of production on the one side, and increased consumption and waste on the other, by the necessary operations of war, have therefore concurred to inflict on us the miseries of scarcity; and other circumstances of a subordinate nature have combined to increase the general distress. - Those who are desirous of tracing the operation of the seasons may receive some instruction from the present pamphlet.'
The Monthly Review (February, 1801) received the work favourably: 'We have no doubt Mr. Hopkinson has suggested one of the concurrent causes of scarcity;- we say concurrent because the present high prices do not spring from one solitary source. Every gentleman will recollect the destruction made by severe winters, among the tender shrubs of his ornamental plantations: scarcely an arbutus has survived; and to winters of extreme cold have succeeded unfavourable springs and summers, and one very wet autumn: all of which must have tended to obstruct or to spoil the produce of the earth. Diminution of production on the one side, and increased consumption and waste on the other, by the necessary operations of war, have therefore concurred to inflict on us the miseries of scarcity; and other circumstances of a subordinate nature have combined to increase the general distress. - Those who are desirous of tracing the operation of the seasons may receive some instruction from the present pamphlet.'
ESTC T5295.
£ 500.00
Antiquates Ref: 26485
