The average price of the measure of corn may be taken at 10 scudi.

Thus the value of the crop will be 7,000 scudi, whereas the same crop cost to raise 8,000 scudi.

Here are 1,000 scudi (about L215) flung clean into the gutter; and all for the pleasure of cultivating 100 rubbia of land.

Is it not much better to let the 100 rubbia to a cattle-breeder, who will pay a rent of thirty or forty shillings per rubbio?
On one side we have a clear loss of L215, and on the other a clear income of L160 or L184." This reasoning is founded upon the calculations of Monsignore Nicolai, a prelate of considerable ability[17]: but it proves nothing, because it attempts to prove too much.

If the cultivation of corn be really so ruinous an operation, it is strange that farmers should continue to grow it merely to spite the government.
But although it is quite true that the cultivation of a rubbio of land costs 80 scudi, it is false that the earth only yields sevenfold on the seed sown.