RENT OF LAND. 61 interest for the stock laid out by the landlord | such as to afford this greater price. The for. upon its improvement. This, no doubt, may be partly the case upon some occasions; for it can scarce ever be more than partly the case. The landlord demands a rent even for unimproved land, and the supposed interest or pro- into the composition of the price of commoRent, it is to be observed, therefore, enters fit upon the expense of improvement rally an addition to this original rent. gene- dities in a different way from wages and proimprovements, besides, are not always made causes of high or low price; high or low rent Those fit. High or low wages and profit are the by the stock of the landlord, but sometimes is the effect of it. by that of the tenant. When the lease comes wages and profit must be paid, in order to It is because high or low to be renewed, however, the landlord commonly demands the same augmentation of rent its price is high or low. bring a particular commodity to market, that as if they had been all made by his own. But it is because its He sometimes demands rent for what is al- very little more, or no more, than what is sufprice is high or low, a great deal more, or together incapable of human improvements. ficient to pay those wages and profit, that it Kelp is a species of sea-weed, which, when affords a high rent, or a low rent, or no rent burnt, yields an alkaline salt, useful for mak- at all. ing glass, soap, and for several other purposes. It grows in several parts of Great Britain, parts of the produce of land which always af The particular consideration, first, of those particularly in Scotland, upon such rocks only ford some rent; secondly, of those which someas lie within the high-water mark, which are times may and sometimes may not afford rent; twice every day covered with the sea, and of and, thirdly, of the variations which, in the which the produce, therefore, was never augmented by human industry. The landlord, however, whose estate is bounded by a kelp shore of this kind, demands a rent for it as much as for his corn-fields. mer must always afford a rent to the landlord. The latter sometimes may and sometimes may not, according to different circumstances. The sea in the neighbourhood of the islands of Shetland is more than commonly abundant in fish, which makes a great part of the subsistence of their inhabitants. land and the water. different periods of improvement, naturally to profit by the produce of the water, they But, in order PART 1.-Of the Produce of Land which almust have a habitation upon the neighbouring ways affords Rent. land. The rent of the landlord is in propor- As men, like all other animals, naturally multion, not to what the farmer can make by the tiply in proportion to the means of their subland, but to what he can make both by the sistence, food is always more or less in defish; and one of the very few instances in a greater or smaller quantity of labour, and It is partly paid in sea-mand. It can always purchase or command which rent makes a part of the price of that somebody can always be found who is willing commodity, is to be found in that country. The rent of land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid cut upon the improvement of the land, or to what he can afford to take, but to what the farmer can afford to give. The quantity of labour, indeed, which it can purto do something in order to obtain it. chase, is not always equal to what it could maintain, if managed in the most economical manner, on account of the high wages which are sometimes given to labour; but it can al ways purchase such a quantity of labour as it that sort of labour is commonly maintained in can maintain, according to the rate at which the neighbourhood. But land, in almost any situation, produces Such parts only of the produce of land can commonly be brought to market, of which the ordinary price is sufficient to replace the stock which must be employed in bringing them a greater quantity of food than what is suffithither, together with its ordinary profits. If cient to maintain all the labour necessary for the ordinary price is more than this, the sur- bringing it to market, in the most liberal way plus part of it will naturally go to the rent of in which that labour is ever maintained. The the land. If it is not more, though the com- surplus, too, is always more than sufficient to modity may be brought to market, it can af- replace the stock which employed that labour, price is, or is not more, depends upon the de- fore, always remains for a rent to the landWhether the together with its profits. Something, there ford no rent to the landlord. mand. lord. The most desert moors in Norway and Scot There are some parts of the produce of land, for which the demand must always be such as land produce some sort of pasture for cattle, to afford a greater price than what is suffici- of which the milk and the increase are always ent to bring them to market; and there are more than sufficient, not only to maintain all others for which it either may or may not be the labour necessary for tending them, and to 2 pay the ordinary profit to the farmer or the the best pasture of equal extent. Though its owner of the herd or flock, but to afford some cultivation requires much more labour, yet the small rent to the landlord. The rent increases surplus which remains after replacing the seed in proportion to the goodness of the pasture. and maintaining all that labour, is likewise The same extent of ground not only main- much greater. If a pound of butcher's meat, tains a greater number of cattle, but as they therefore, was never supposed to be worth more are brought within a smaller compass, less la- than a pound of bread, this greater surplus bour becomes requisite to tend them, and to would everywhere be of greater value and collect their produce. The landlord gains constitute a greater fund, both for the profit both ways; by the increase of the produce, of the farmer and the rent of the landlord. It and by the diminution of the labour which seems to have done so universally in the rude must be maintained out of it. beginnings of agriculture. The rent of land not only varies with its But the relative values of those two differfertility, whatever be its produce, but with its ent species of food, bread and butcher's meat, situation, whatever be its fertility, Land in are very different in the different periods of the neighbourhood of a town gives a greater agriculture. In its rude beginnings, the ur rent than land equally fertile in a distant part improved wilds, which then occupy the fat of the country. Though it may cost no more greater part of the country, are all abandoned labour to cultivate the one than the other, it to cattle. There is more butcher's meat than must always cost more to bring the produce bread; and bread, therefore, is the food for of the distant land to market. A greater which there is the greatest competition, and quantity of labour, therefore, must be main- which consequently brings the greatest price. tained out of it; and the surplus, from which At Buenos Ayres, we are told by Ulloa, four are drawn both the profit of the farmer and reals, one-and-twenty pence halfpenny sterling, the rent of the landlord, must be diminished. | was, forty or fifty years ago, the ordinary price But in remote parts of the country, the rate of an ox, chosen from a herd of two or three of profit, as has already been shewn, is gene hundred. He says nothing of the price of rally higher than in the neighbourhood of a bread, probably because he found nothing relarge town. A smaller proportion of this di-markable about it. An ox there, he says, minished surplus, therefore, must belong to costs little more than the labour of catching the landlord. him. But corn can nowhere be raised withGood roads, canals, and navigable rivers, out a great deal of labour; and in a country by diminishing the expense of carriage, put which lies upon the river Plate, at that time the remote parts of the country more nearly the direct road from Europe to the silver upon a level with those in the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that account the greatest of all improvements. They encourage the cultivation of the remote, which must always be the most extensive circle of the country. They are advantageous to the town by breaking down the monopoly of the counuy in its neighbourhood. They are advan- By the extension, besides, of cultivation, tageous even to that part of the country. the unimproved wilds become insufficient to Though they introduce some rival commodi- supply the demand for butcher's meat. ties into the old market, they open many new great part of the cultivated lands must be em markets to its produce. Monopoly, besides, ployed in rearing and fattening cattle; of which is a great enemy to good management, which the price, therefore, must be sufficient to pay, can never be universally established, but in not only the labour necessary for tending them, consequence of that free and universal com- but the rent which the landlord, and the propetition which forces every body to have re- fit which the farmer, could have drawn from course to it for the sake of self defence. It such land employed in tillage. The cattle is not more than fifty years ago, that some of bred upon the most uncultivated moors, when the counties in the neighbourhood of London brought to the same market, are, in propor petitioned the parliament against the exten- tion to their weight or goodness, sold at the sion of the turnpike roads into the remoter same price as those which are reared upon the Those remoter counties, they pre- most improved land. The proprietors of those tended, from the cheapness of labour, would moors profit by it, and raise the rent of their be able to sell their grass and corn cheaper in land in proportion to the price of their cattle. the London market than themselves, and would It is not more than a century ago, that in thereby reduce their rents, and ruin their cul- many parts of the Highlands of Scotland, tivation. Their rents, however, have risen, butcher's meat was as cheap or cheaper than and their cultivation has been improved since even bread made of oatmea'. that time. counties. A corn field of moderate fertility produces a much greater quantity of food for man, than mines of Potosi, the money-price of labour could be very cheap. It is otherwise when cultivation is extended over the greater part of the country. There is then more bread than butcher's meat. The competition changes its direction, and the price of butcher's meat be comes greater than the price of bread. The Union opened the market of England to the Highland cattle. Their ordinary price, at present, is about three times greater than at the begin A 53 ning of the century, and the rents of many hood of Rome, must have been very much Highland estates have been tripled and qua- discouraged by the distributions of corn which drupled in the same time. In almost every were frequently made to the people, either part of Great Britain, a pound of the best gratuitously, or at a very low price. This butcher's meat is, in the present times, gene- corn was brought from the conquered pro. rally worth more than two pounds of the best vinces, of which several, instead of taxes, were white bread; and in plentiful years it is some- obliged to furnish a tenth part of their protimes worth three or four pounds. duce at a stated price, about sixpence a-peck, to the republic. The low price at which this corn was distributed to the people, must necessarily have sunk the price of what could be brought to the Roman market from Latium, have discouraged its cultivation in that counor the ancient territory of Rome, and must try. It is thus that, in the progress of improvement, the rent and profit of unimproved pasture come to be regulated in some measure by the rent and profit of what is improved, and these again by the rent and profit of corn. Corn is an annual crop; butcher's meat, a crop which requires four or five years to grow. As an acre of land, therefore, will produce a much smaller quantity of the one species of food cipal produce is corn, a well-inclosed piece of In an open country, too, of which the prin than of the other, the inferiority of the quan- grass will frequently rent higher than any tity must be compensated by the superiority corn field in its neighbourhood. It is conveof the price. If it was more than compen-nient for the maintenance of the cattle emsated, more corn-land would be turned into pasture; and if it was not compensated, part of what was in pasture would be brought back into corn. ployed in the cultivation of the corn; and its high rent is, in this case, not so properly paid from the value of its own produce, as from means of it. that of the corn lands which are cultivated by neighbouring lands are completely inclosed. It is likely to fall, if ever the The present high rent of inclosed land in Scotland seems owing to the scarcity of inclosure, and will probably last no longer than that scarcity. The advantage of inclosure is the labour of guarding the cattle, which feed greater for pasture than for corn. It saves better, too, when they are not liable to be disturbed by their keeper or his dog. this kind, the rent and profit of corn, or whatBut where there is no local advantage of ever else is the common vegetable food of the people, must naturally regulate upon the land which is fit for producing it, the rent and pro. fit of pasture. This equality, however, between the rent and profit of grass and those of corn; of the land of which the immediate produce is food for cattle, and of that of which the immediate produce is food for men, must be understood to take place only through the greater part of the improved lands of a great country. some particular local situations it is quite In otherwise, and the rent and profit of grass are much superior to what can be made by corn. Thus, in the neighbourhood of a great town, the demand for milk, and for forage to horses, frequently contribute, together with the high price of butcher's meat, to raise the value of grass above what may be called its natural proportion to that of corn. This local advantage, it is evident, cannot be communicated to the lands at a distance. The use of the artificial grasses, of turnips, Particular circumstances have sometimes which have been fallen upon to make an equal carrots, cabbages, and the other expedients rendered some countries so populous, that the quantity of land feed a greater number of whole territory, like the lands in the neigh-cattle than when in natural grass, should bourhood of a great town, has not been suffi- somewhat reduce, it might be expected, the cient to produce both the grass and the corn superiority which, in an improved country, necessary for the subsistence of their inhabit- the price of butcher's meat naturally has over Their lands, therefore, have been prin- that of bread. cipally employed in the production of grass, done so; and there is some reason for believIt seems accordingly to have the more bulky commodity, and which cannoting that, at least in the London market, the be so easily brought from a great distance; price of butcher's meat, in proportion to the and corn, the food of the great body of the price of bread, is a good deal lower in the people, has been chiefly imported from foreign present times than it was in the beginning of countries. Holland is at present in this si- the last century. tuation; and a considerable part of ancient Italy seems to have been so during the prospe- ry, Doctor Birch has given us an account of rity of the Romans. To feed well, old Cato the prices of butcher's meat as commonly paid said, as we are told by Cicero, was the first by that prince. and most profitable thing in the management quarters of an ox, weighing six hundred of a private estate; to feed tolerably well, the pounds, usually cost him nine pounds ten second; and to feed ill, the third. To plough, shillings, or thereabouts; that is thirty-one be ranked only in the fourth place of profit shillings and eight-pence per hundred pounds and advantage. Tillage, indeed, in that part weight. Prince Henry died on the 6th of No of ancient Italy which lay in the neighbour-vember 1612, in the nineteenth year of his age ants. In the Appendix to the life of Prince Hen It is there said, that the four In March 1764, there was a parliamentary | sonable interest or compensation for this supe inquiry into the causes of the high price of rior expense. provisions at that time. It was then, among In a hop garden, a fruit garden, a kitchen other proof to the same purpose, given in evi- garden, both the rent of the landlord, and the dence by a Virginia merchant, that in March profit of the farmer, are generally greater than 1763, he had victualled his ships for twenty- in a corn or grass field. But to bring the four or twenty-five shillings the hundred ground into this condition requires more exweight of beef, which he considered as the ordinary price; whereas, in that dear year, he had paid twenty-seven shillings for the same weight and sort. This high price in 1764 is, however, four shillings and eight-pence cheaper than the ordinary price paid by Prince Henry; and it is the best beef only, it must be observed, which is fit to be salted for those distant voyages. pense. Hence a greater rent becomes due to the landlord. It requires, too, a more attentive and skilful management. Hence a greatThe er profit becomes due to the farmer. crop, too, at least in the hop and fruit garden, is more precarious. Its price, therefore, be. sides compensating all occasional losses, must afford something like the profit of insurance. The circumstances of gardeners, generally The price paid by Prince Henry amounts mean, and always moderate, may satisfy us to 3d. 4-5ths per pound weight of the whole that their great ingenuity is not commonly carcase, coarse and choice pieces taken to-over-recompensed. Their delightful art is gether; and at that rate the choice pieces could practised by so many rich people for amusenot have been sold by retail for less than 43d. ment, that little advantage is to be made by or 5d. the pound. those who practise it for profit; because the persons who should naturally be their best customers, supply themselves with all their most precious productions. In the parliamentary inquiry in 1764, the witnesses stated the price of the choice pieces of the best beef to be to the consumer 4d. and 44d. the pound; and the coarse picces in general to be from seven farthings to 2d. and 23d.; and this, they said, was in general one halfpenny dearer than the same sort of pieces had usually been sold in the month of March. But even this high price is still a good deal cheaper than what we can well suppose the ordinary retail price to have been in the time of Prince Henry. the During the first twelve years of the last century, average price of the best wheat at the Windsor market was L.1: 18: 3d. the quarter of nine Winchester bushels. But in the twelve years preceding 1764, including that year, the average price of the same measure of the best wheat at the same market was L.2:1 : 9 d. The advantage which the landlord derives from such improvements, seems at no time to have been greater than what was sufficient to compensate the original expense of making them. In the ancient husbandry, after the vineyard, a well-watered kitchen garden seems to have been the part of the farm which was supposed to yield the most valuable produce. But Democritus, who wrote upon husbandry about two thousand years ago, and who was regarded by the ancients as one of the fathers of the art, thought they did not act wisely who inclosed a kitchen garden. The profit, he said, would not compensate the expense of a stone-wall: and bricks (he meant, I suppose, bricks baked in the sun) mouldered with the rain and the winter-storm, and required continual repairs. Columella, who reports this judgment of Democritus, does not controvert it, but proposes a very frugal method of inclosing with a hedge of brambles and briars, which he says he had found by experi In al great countries, the greater part of ence to be both a lasting and an impenetrable the cultivated lands are employed in produc- fence; but which, it seems, was not common. ing either food for men or food for cattle. ly known in the time of Democritus. Palla The rent and profit of these regulate the rent dius adopts the opinion of Columella, which and profit of all other cultivated land. If any had before been recommended by Varro. In particular produce afforded less, the land would the judgment of those ancient improvers, the soon be turned into corn or pasture; and if produce of a kitchen garden had, it seems, any afforded more, some part of the lands in been little more than sufficient to pay the excorn or pasture would soon be turned to that traordinary culture and the expense of waterproduce. ing; for in countries so near the sun, it was Those productions, indeed, which require thought proper, in those times as in the preeither a greater original expense of improve-sent, to have the command of a stream of wa ment, or a greater annual expense of cultiva- ter, which could be conducted to every bed in tion in order to fit the land for them, appear the garden. Through the greater part of Eucommonly to afford, the one a greater rent, rope, a kitchen garden is not at present sup the other a greater profit, than corn or pas-posed to deserve a better inclosure than that ture. This superiority, however, will sel- recommended by Columelia. In the first twelve years of the last century, therefore, wheat appears to have been a good deal cheaper, and butcher's meat a good deal dearer, than in the twelve years preceding 1764, including that year. In Great Bridom be found to amount to more than a rea-tain, and some other northern countries, the RENT OF LAND. finer fruits cannot be brought to perfection | more carefully cultivated than in the wine 65 but by the assistance of a wall. therefore, in such countries, must be sufficient it: as in Burgundy, Guienne, and the Upper Their price, provinces, where the land is fit for producing to pay the expense of building and maintain- Languedoc. The numerous hands employed ing what they cannot be had without. fruit-wall frequently surrounds the kitchen encourage the other, by affording a ready mar. The in the one species of cultivation necessarily garden, which thus enjoys the benefit of an in-ket for its produce. To diminish the number closure which its own produce could seldom of those who are capable of paying it, is surcpay for. aging the cultivation of corn. ly a most unpromising expedient for encour policy which would promote agriculture, by It is like the discouraging manufactures. That the vineyard, when properly planted and brought to perfection, was the most valuable part of the farm, seems to have been an undoubted maxim in the ancient agriculture, as it is in the modern, through all the wine countries. But whether it was advantageous to plant a new vineyard, was a matter of dispute among the ancient Italian husbandmen, as we learn from Columella. like a true lover of all curious cultivation, in He decides, favour of the vineyard; and endeavours to shew, by a comparison of the profit and expense, that it was a most advantageous improvement. Such comparisons, however, be-tity of land which can be fitted for some parIt sometimes happens, indeed, that the quantween the profit and expense of new projects ticular produce, is too small to supply the efare commonly very fallacious; and in nothing fectual demand. more so than in agriculture. The whole produce can be actually made by such plantations been com- somewhat more than what is sufficient to pay Had the gain disposed of to those who are willing to give monly as great as he imagined it might have the whole rent, wages, and profit, necessary been, there could have been no dispute about for raising and bringing it to market, accordit. The same point is frequently at this day ing to their natural rates, or according to the a matter of controversy in the wine conntries. rates at which they are paid in the greater Their writers on agriculture, indeed, the lov- part of other cultivated land. ers and promoters of high cultivation, seem part of the price which remains after defrayThe surplus generally disposed to decide with Columella ing the whole expense of improvement and in favour of the vineyard. In France, the cultivation, may commonly, in this case, and anxiety of the proprietors of the old vineyards in this case only, bear no regular proportion to prevent the planting of any new ones, seems to the like surplus in corn or pasture, but to favour their opinion, and to indicate a con- exceed it in almost any degree; and the greatsciousness in those who must have the experi-er part of this excess naturally goes to the ence, that this species of cultivation is at pre-rent of the landlord. sent in that country more profitable than any other. It seems, at the same time, however, to indicate another opinion, that this superior profit can last no longer than the laws which at present restrain the free cultivation of the vine. In 1731, they obtained an order of council, prohibiting both the planting of new vineyards, and the renewal of these old ones, of which the cultivation had been interrupted for two years, without a particular permission vineyards only, that the common land of the from the king, to be granted only in conse-country can be brought into competition; for quence of an information from the intendant with those of a peculiar quality it is evident of the province, certifying that he had exa- that it cannot. mined the land, and that it was incapable of therefore, which require either a greater origi The rent and profit of those productions, nal expense of improvement in order to fit the land for them, or a greater annual expense of cultivation, though often much superior to no more than compensate such extraordinary those of corn and pasture, yet when they do expense, are in reality regulated by the rent and profit of those common crops. any other culture. may ample, between the rent and profit of wine, and The usual and natural proportion, for exthose of corn and pasture, must be understood to take place only with regard to those vineyards which produce nothing but good common wine, such as can be raised almost anywhere, upon any light, gravelly, or sandy soil, and which has nothing to recommend it but its strength and wholesomeness. It is with such der was the scarcity of corn and pasture, and it derives a flavour which no culture or man- 5 |