At the end of the 19th century, the populations of England was only about 10 million, but much of their food supply had to be produced from the limited agricultural land of the country. Changes in land tenure, brought about by enclosure of the old common fields and the formation of large farms in the place of small scattered plots led to rural depopulation. The towns, especially those where the new factory industries had been established, grew very rapidly and were overcrowded, dirty and unhealthy.
The people who lived in them were poor under fed, overworked and had little resistance to diseases. Thus, had food supply been reduced to population expanded too rapidly, these people would have suffered starvation and epidemics would have reduced the population. This has already happened twice during England's history; the Black Death of fourteenth century and the Great Plague of the seventeenth century coincided with periods when harvest was had and three were food storages, Hunger reduced resistance to diseases bubonic plague caused the death of many thousands of people.
Malthus was afraid that something similar would happen again. In his time great advance were being made in the treatment and control of diseases such as cholera, typhoid and smallpox which were still rife in England and Europe.
This meant that death rates, and particularly infant mortally rates, were failing Malthus calculated that population could double every twenty-five years, but no similar increase in food supplies could be expected. He could not have foreseen the tremendous changes which were to take place in the nineteenth and twentieth century.
According to Malthus, what is the relationship between population growth and earth's resources?
Correct Answer: (a) Population grows rapidly as compared to subsistence produced from earth
Solution:According to Malthus population grows rapidly as compared to subsistence produced from earth. Malthus believes that Famines, war and diseases are controlling factors of population.