Petty several times discussed numerical examples in which (usually) 100 farmers could feed 1000 people in total (a remarkably high assumed productivity for the time, incidentally). I am interested in the idea that one could quantify the relation between agriculture and the rest of the economy in this way - x farmers can feed y people - or at least a clear recognition that the productivity of agriculture governs the size of the non-agricultural population. Here is the question: did anyone before Petty state this relationship at all explicitly, or develop it at all? Tony Brewer: [log in to unmask]