Page:PettyWilliam1899EconomicWritingsVol2.djvu/68

Rh II. The obvious Objection hereunto is, That one Horse, Bull, or Ram, having each of them many Females, do promote increase. To which I Answer, That although perhaps there be naturally, even of these species, more Males than Females, yet artificially, that is, by making Geldings, Oxen, and Weathers, there are fewer. From whence it will follow, That when by experience it is found how ma-|66|ny Ews (suppose twenty) one Ram will serve, we may know what proportion of male-Lambs to castrate or geld, viz. nineteen, or thereabouts: for if you emasculate fewer, viz. but ten, you shall, by promiscuous copulation of each of those ten with two Females, hinder the increase, so far as the admittance of two Males will do it: but, if you castrate none at all, it is highly probable, that, every of the twenty Males copulating with every of the twenty Females, there will be little or no conception in any of them all.

III. And this I take to be the truest Reason, why Foxes, Wolves, and other Vermin Animals, that are not gelt, increase not faster than Sheep, when as so many thousands of these are daily Butchered, and very few of the other die otherwise than of themselves.

4. We have hitherto said, There are more Males than Females; we say next, That the one exceed the other by about a thirteenth part. So that although more Men die violent deaths than Women, that is, more are slain in Wars, killed by Mischance, drowned at Sea, and die by the Hand of Justice; moreover, more Men go to Colonies, and travel into Forein parts, than Women; and lastly, more remain unmarried than of Women, as Fellows of Colleges, and Apprentices above eighteen, |67| &c. yet the said thirteenth part difference bringeth the business but to such a pass, that every Woman may have an Husband, without the allowance of Polygamy.

5. Moreover, although a Man be Prolifick fourty years, and a Woman but five and twenty, which makes the Males to be as 560 to 325 Females, yet the causes above-named, and the later marriage of the Men, reduce all to an equality.

6. It appearing, that there were fourteen Men to thirteen