The Economic Table

...the employment of 333,334 ploughs at 120 arpents An "arpent" is an old French unit of land measurement, roughly equivalent to an acre, though it varied by region. of land per plough, 333,334 men to drive them, and 40 million arpents of land.

6 billion

This cultivation can | extend in France to more than 60 million arpents.

We are not speaking here of the small-scale cultivation original: "petite culture" carried out with oxen, where it would require more than a million ploughs and about 2,000,000 men to exploit 40 million arpents of land, which would yield only two-fifths of the product given by large-scale cultivation original: "grande culture". This small-scale cultivation, to which Farmers are reduced for lack of wealth to establish the original advances term: "avances primitives" refers to the initial capital investment required to start a farm, such as livestock, equipment, and enough supplies to last until the first harvest., is carried out at the expense of the landed estates themselves—which are largely consumed by costs—and by excessive annual expenses for the subsistence of the multitude of men occupied in this type of cultivation, who absorb almost the entire product. This thankless cultivation, which reveals the poverty and ruin of the Nations where it prevails, has no relation to the order of the Tableau The "Tableau Économique" is the foundational visual and mathematical model of the Physiocratic school, showing how wealth flows between farmers, landowners, and the "sterile" class of craftsmen., which is regulated based on the state of half the employment of a plough, where annual advances can, by means of the fund of original advances, produce one hundred percent.

The complete original advances for the establishment of one plough in large-scale cultivation—for the initial fund for expenses in livestock, instruments, seed, food, maintenance, wages, etc., during the course of two years of work before the first harvest—are estimated at 10,000 livres; thus the total for 333,334 ploughs is 3,333,340,000 l. original: "livres," the standard unit of currency in pre-Revolutionary France..

Vocabulary: Physiocracy, Economic Table, Large-scale cultivation, Small-scale cultivation, Arpents, Ploughs, Original advances, Livestock, Livres, François Quesnay