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 iron, cotton and woollen goods. It is sometimes a little difficult to arrange for an uninterrupted supply of food for forty million people. Until about the middle of the eighteenth century the south and east of England had been the richest counties. Now the north and west, South Wales and Southern Scotland quickly began to supplant them, because in these parts iron and coal are found close together. The invention of numerous machines also began to save hand-labour, and weaving and spinning, which were formerly done in country cottages, were now done in great factories, which could only exist in great towns. The most important of all discoveries of this period is that of the steam engine. For, by the force of steam, all machines could be worked for all manufactures much more cheaply and powerfully than by hand-labour or by water-mills. England used steam in all her manufactures twenty years before any other nation, and so no other nations could at first compete with her. The sad result has been that the country districts have gradually been deserted and the towns have become of more important than the farming land. But the full result was not generally realized until far into the nineteenth century. At first, the faster population increased in the towns, the greater was the demand for corn to feed it. Very little corn could yet be brought from abroad, because few countries had any corn to spare before the vast spaces of America and Canada were cultivated. So the price of corn began to go up and up; and, though wages went up too, they never went up fast enough. When the harvest fell short, the poor were often very badly off for food, and had to have relief given them out of the Poor-rates. Poor-rates