finer fruits cannot be brought to perfection | more carefully cultivated than in the wine but by the assistance of a wall. Their price, provinces, where the land is fit for producing therefore, in such countries, must be sufficient it: as in Burgundy, Guienne, and the Upper to pay the expense of building and maintain- Languedoc. The numerous hands employed ing what they cannot be had without. The in the one species of cultivation necessarily fruit-wall frequently surrounds the kitchen encourage the other, by affording a ready margarden, 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 sure pay for. ly a most unpromising expedient for encouraging the cultivation of corn. It is like the policy which would promote agriculture, by discouraging manufactures. The rent and profit of those productions, therefore, which require either a greater original expense of improvement in order to fit the land for them, or a greater annual expense of cultivation, though often much superior to those of corn and pasture, yet when they do no more than compensate such extraordinary expense, are in reality regulated by the rent and profit of those common crops. 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. He decides, like a true lover of all curious cultivation, in favour of the vineyard; and endeavours to shew, by a comparison of the profit and expense, that it was a most advantageous im- It sometimes happens, indeed, that the quanprovement. Such comparisons, however, be-tity of land which can be fitted for some partween the profit and expense of new projects ticular produce, is too small to supply the efare commonly very fallacious; and in nothing|fectual demand. The whole produce can be more so than in agriculture. Had the gain disposed of to those who are willing to give actually made by such plantations been com- somewhat more than what is sufficient to pay 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. ing to their natural rates, or according to the rates at which they are paid in the greater part of other cultivated land. part of the price which remains after defraying the whole expense of improvement and cultivation, may commonly, in this case, and in this case only, bear no regular proportion to the like surplus in corn or pasture, but may exceed it in almost any degree; and the greater part of this excess naturally goes to the rent of the landlord. The surplus The same point is frequently at this day a matter of controversy in the wine conntries. Their writers on agriculture, indeed, the lovers and promoters of high cultivation, seem generally disposed to decide with Columella in favour of the vineyard. In France, the anxiety of the proprietors of the old vineyards to prevent the planting of any new ones, seems to favour their opinion, and to indicate a consciousness in those who must have the experience, that this species of cultivation is at present in that country more profitable than any The usual and natural proportion, for ex other. It seems, at the same time, however, ample, between the rent and profit of wine, and to indicate another opinion, that this superior those of corn and pasture, must be understood profit can last no longer than the laws which to take place only with regard to those vineat present restrain the free cultivation of the yards which produce nothing but good common vine. In 1731, they obtained an order of wine, such as can be raised almost anywhere, council, prohibiting both the planting of new upon any light, gravelly, or sandy soil, and vineyards, and the renewal of these old ones, which has nothing to recommend it but its of which the cultivation had been interrupted strength and wholesomeness. It is with such 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 The vine is more affected by the difference any other culture. The pretence of this or- of soils than any other fruit-tree. From some der was the scarcity of corn and pasture, and it derives a flavour which no culture or manthe superabundance of wine. But had this agement can equal, it is supposed, upon any superabundance been real, it would, without other. This flavour, real or imaginary, is any order of council, have effectually prevent- sometimes peculiar to the produce of a few ed the plantation of new vineyards, by reduc- vineyards; sometimes it extends through the ing the profits of this species of cultivation greater part of a small district, and sometimes below their natural proportion to those of corn through a considerable part of a large proand pasture. With regard to the supposed vince. The whole quantity of such wines scarcity of corn occasioned by the multiplica- that is brought to market falls short of the eftion of vineyards, corn is nowhere in Francefectual demand, or the demand of those who E would be willing to pay the whole rent, pro- | a rice or corn field either in Europe or Ame fit, and wages, necessary for preparing and rica. It is commonly said that a sugar planter bringing them thither, according to the ordina- expects that the rum and the molasses should ry rate, or according to the rate at which they defray the whole expense of his cultivation, are paid in common vineyards. The whole and that his sugar should be all clear profit. quantity, therefore, can be disposed of to those If this be true, for I pretend not to affirm it, who are willing to pay more, which necessa-it is as if a corn farmer expected to defray rily raises their price above that of common the expense of his cultivation with the chaff wine. The difference is greater or less, ac- and the straw, and that the grain should be cording as the fashionableness and scarcity of all clear profit. We see frequently societies the wine render the competition of the buyers of merchants in London, and other trading more or less eager. Whatever it be, the great-towns, purchase waste lands in our sugar coer part of it goes to the rent of the landlord. lonies, which they expect to improve and culFor though such vineyards are in general tivate with profit, by means of factors and amore carefully cultivated than most others, gents, notwithstanding the great distance and the high price of the wine seems to be, not so the uncertain returns, from the defective admuch the effect, as the cause of this careful ministration of justice in those countries. Nocultivation. In so valuable a produce, the body will attempt to improve and cultivate in loss occasioned by negligence is so great, as the same manner the most fertile lands of to force even the most careless to attention. Scotland, Ireland, or the corn provinces of A small part of this high price, therefore, is North America, though, from the more exact sufficient to pay the wages of the extraordi- administration of justice in these countries, nary labour bestowed upon their cultivation, more regular returns might be expected. and the profits of the extraordinary stock which puts that labour into motion. In Virginia and Maryland, the cultivation of tobacco is preferred, as most profitable, to The sugar colonies possessed by the Euro- that of corn. Tobacco might be cultivated pean nations in the West Indies may be com- with advantage through the greater part of pared to those precious vineyards. Their whole Europe; but, in almost every part of Europe, produce falls short of the effectual demand of it has become a principal subject of taxation; Europe, and can be disposed of to those who and to collect a tax from every different farm are willing to give more than what is suffici- in the country where this plant might happen ent to pay the whole rent, profit, and wages, to be cultivated, would be more difficult, it necessary for preparing and bringing it to has been supposed, than to levy one upon its market, according to the rate at which they importation at the custom-house. The cultiare commonly paid by any other produce. In vation of tobacco has, upon this account, been Cochin China, the finest white sugar general-most absurdly prohibited through the greater ly sells for three piastres the quintal, about part of Europe, which necessarily gives a sort thirteen shillings and sixpence of our money, of monopoly to the countries where it is allow. as we are told by Mr Poivre", a very carefuled; and as Virginia and Maryland produce the observer of the agriculture of that country. greatest quantity of it, they share largely, What is there called the quintal, weighs from though with some competitors, in the advana hundred and fifty to two hundred Paris tage of this monopoly. The cultivation of topounds, or a hundred and seventy-five Paris bacco, however, seems not to be so advantapounds at a medium, which reduces the price tageous as that of sugar. I have never even of the hundred weight English to about eight heard of any tobacco plantation that was imshillings sterling; not a fourth part of what proved and cultivated by the capital of meris commonly paid for the brown or muscova- chants who resided in Great Britain; and our da sugars imported from our colonies, and tobacco colonies send us home no such wealnot a sixth part of what is paid for the finest thy planters as we see frequently arrive from white sugar. The greater part of the culti- our sugar islands. Though, from the prefervated lands in Cochin China are employed in ence given in those colonies to the cultivation producing corn and rice, the food of the great of tobacco above that of corn, it would appear body of the people. The respective prices of that the effectual demand of Europe for tocorn, rice, and sugar, are there probably in bacco is not completely supplied, it probably the natural proportion, or in that which natu- is more nearly so than that for sugar; and rally takes place in the different crops of the though the present price of tobacco is probably greater part of cultivated land, and which re-more than sufficient to pay the whole rent, compenses the landlord and farmer, as nearly wages, and profit, necessary for preparing and as can be computed, according to what is bringing it to market, according to the rate at usually the original expense of improvement, which they are commonly paid in corn land, and the annual expense of cultivation. But it must not be so much more as the present in our sugar colonies, the price of sugar bears price of sugar. Our tobacco planters, acno such proportion to that of the produce of cordingly, have shewn the same fear of the * Voyages d'un Philosophe superabundance of tobacco, which the proprie tors of the old vineyards in France have of the superabundance of wine. By act of as-bushels each, are said to be the ordinary prosembly, they have restrained its cultivation to duce of an acre. Though its cultivation, six thousand plants, supposed to yield a thous- therefore, requires more labour, a much greatand weight of tobacco, for every negro between sixteen and sixty years of age. Such a negro, over and above this quantity of tobacco, can manage, they reckon, four acres of Indian corn. To prevent the market from being overstocked, too, they have sometimes, in plentiful years, we are told by Dr Douglas (I suspect he has been ill informed), burnt a certain quantity of tobacco for every negro, in the same manner as the Dutch are said to do of spices. If such violent methods are necessary to keep up the present price of tobacco, the superior advantage of its culture over that of corn, if it still has any, will not probably be of long continuance. It is in this manner that the rent of the cultivated land, of which the produce is human food, regulates the rent of the greater part of other cultivated land. No particular produce can long afford less, because the land would immediately be turned to another use; and if any particular produce commonly affords more, it is because the quantity of land which can be fitted for it is too small to supply the effectual demand. In Europe, corn is the principal produce of land, which serves immediately for human food. Except in particular situations, therefore, the rent of corn land regulates in Europe that of all other cultivated land. Britain need envy neither the vineyards of France, nor the olive plantations of Italy. Except in particular situations, the value of these is regulated by that of corn, in which the fertility of Britain is not much inferior to that of either of those two countries. er surplus remains after maintaining all that labour. In those rice countries, therefore, where rice is the common and favourite vegetable food of the people, and where the cultivators are chiefly naintained with it, a greater share of this greater surplus should belong to the landlord than in corn countries. In Carolina, where he planters, as in other British colonies, are generally both farmers and landlords, and where rent, consequently, is confounded with profit, the eultivation of rice is found to be more profitable than that of corn, though their fields produce only one crop in the year, and though, from the prevalence of the customs of Europe, rice is not there the common and favourite vegetable food of the perple. A good rice field is a bog at all seasons, and at one season a bog covered with water. It is unfit either for corn, or pasture, or vineyard, or, indeed, for any other vegetable produce that is very useful to men; and the lands which are fit for those purposes are not fit for rice. Even in the rice countries, therefore, the rent of rice lands cannot regulate the rent of the other cultivated land which can never be turned to that produce. The food produced by a field of potatoes is not inferior in quantity to that produced by a field of rice, and much superior to what is produced by a field of wheat. Twelve thousand weight of potatoes from an acre of land is not a greater produce than two thousand weight of wheat. The food or solid nourish ment, indeed, which can be drawn from each of those two plants, is not altogether in pro An acre of po If, in any country, the common and favour-portion to their weight, on account of the waite vegetable food of the people should be drawn from a plant, of which the most common land, with the same, or nearly the same culture, produced a much greater quantity than the most fertile does of corn; the rent of the landlord, or the surplus quantity of food which would remain to him, after paying the labour, and replacing the stock of the farmer, together with its ordinary profits, would necessarily be much greater. Whatever was the rate at which labour was commonly maintained in that country, this greater surplus could always maintain a greater quantity of it, and, consequently, enable the landlord to purchase or command a greater quantity of it. The real value of his rent, his real power and authority, his command of the necessaries and conveniencies of life with which the labour of other people could supply him, would necessarily be much greater. A rice field produces a much greater quantity of food than the most fertile corn field. Two crops in the year, from thirty to sixty • Douglas's Summary, vol. ii. p. 372, 373. tery nature of potatoes. Allowing, however, E S rents would rise much beyond what they are at present. way in which they require them, and are willing to pay for them. In the one state, therefore, there is always a superabundance of those materials, which are frequently, upon that ac The land which is fit for potatoes, is fit for almost every other useful vegetable. If they occupied the same proportion of cultivated count, of little or no value. In the other, land which corn does at present, they would regulate, in the same manner, the rent of the greater part of other cultivated land. there is often a scarcity, which necessarily augments their value. In the one state, a great part of them is thrown away as useless; and the price of what is used is considered as equal only to the labour and expense of fitting it for use, and can, therefore, afford no rent to the landlord. In the other, they are all made use of, and there is frequently a demand for more than can be had. Somebody is always willing to give more for every part of them, than what is sufficient to pay the expense of bringing them to market. Their price, therefore, can always afford some rent to the landlord. In some parts of Lancashire, it is pretended, I have been told, that bread of oatmeal is a heartier food for labouring people than wheaten bread, and I have frequently heard the same doctrine held in Scotland. I am, however, somewhat doubtful of the truth of it. The common people in Scotland, who are fed with oatmeal, are in general neither so strong nor so handsome as the same rank of people in England, who are fed with wheaten bread. They neither work so well, nor look so well; and as there is not the same differ- The skins of the larger animals were the ence between the people of fashion in the two original materials of clothing. Among nacountries, experience would seem to shew, tions of hunters and shepherds, therefore, that the food of the common people in Scot- whose food consists chiefly in the flesh of those land is not so suitable to the human constitu- animals, every man, by providing himself with tion as that of their neighbours of the same food, provides himself with the materials of rank in England. But it seems to be other- more clothing than he can wear. If there wise with potatoes. The chairmen, porters, was no foreign commerce, the greater part of and coal-heavers in London, and those un-them would be thrown away as things of no fortunate women who live by prostitution, the strongest men and the most beautiful women perhaps in the British dominions, are said to be, the greater part of them, from the lowest rank of people in Ireland, who are generally fed with this root. No food can afford a more decisive proof of its nourishing quality, or of its being peculiarly suitable to the health of most barbarous nations, I believe, among the human constitution. value. This was probably the case among the hunting nations of North America, before their country was discovered by the Europeans, with whom they now exchange their surplus peltry, for blankets, fire-arms, and brandy, which gives it some value. In the present commercial state of the known world, the whom land property is established, have some It is difficult to preserve potatoes through foreign commerce of this kind, and find among the year, and impossible to store them like their wealthier neighbours such a demand for corn, for two or three years together. The all the materials of clothing, which their land fear of not being able to sell them before they produces, and which can neither be wrought rot, discourages their cultivation, and is, per-up nor consumed at home, as raises their price haps, the chief obstacle to their ever becoming above what it costs to send them to those in any great country, like bread, the principal | wealthier neighbours. It affords, therefore, vegetable food of all the different ranks of the some rent to the landlord. When the greater people. PART II.—Of the Produce of Land, which sometimes does, and sometimes does not, afford Rent. HUMAN food seems to be the only produce of land, which always and necessarily affords some rent to the landlord. Other sorts of produce sometimes may, and sometimes may not, according to different circumstances. After food, clothing and lodging are the two great wants of mankind. Land, in its original rude state, can afford the materials of clothing and lodging to a much greater number of people than it can feed. In its improved state, it can sometimes feed a greater number of people than it can supply with those materials; at least in the part of the Highland cattle were consumed on their own hills, the exportation of their hides made the most considerable article of the commerce of that country, and what they were exchanged for afforded some addition to the rent of the Highland estates. The wool of England, which in old times, could neither be consumed nor wrought up at home, found a market in the then wealthier and more industrious country of Flanders, and its price afforded something to the rent of the land which produced it. In countries not better cultivated than England was then, or than the Highlands of Scotland are now, and which had no foreign commerce, the materials of clothing would evidently be so superabundant, that a great part of them would be thrown away as useless, and no part could afford any rent to the landlord. The materials of lodging cannot always be rent. transported to so great a distance as those of the other wants and fancies of mankind. clothing, and do not so readily become an ob- Clothing and lodging, household furniture, ject of foreign commerce. When they are and what is called equipage, are the principal superabundant in the country which produces objects of the greater part of those wants and them, it frequently happens, even in the pre- fancies. The rich man consumes no more sent commercial state of the world, that they food than his poor neighbour. In quality it are of no value to the landlord. A good stone may be very different, and to select and prequarry in the neighbourhood of London would pare it may require more labour and art; ford a considerable rent. In many parts of but in quantity it is very nearly the same. otland and Wales it affords none. Barren But compare the spacious palace and great umber for building is of great value in a po- wardrobe of the one, with the hovel and the pulous and well-cultivated country, and the few rags of the other, and you will be sensible land which produces it affords a considerable that the difference between their clothing, But in many parts of North America, lodging, and household furniture, is almost as the landlord would be much obliged to any great in quantity as it is in quality. The debody who would carry away the greater part sire of food is limited in every man by the of his large trees. In some parts of the High- narrow capacity of the human stomach; but lands of Scotland, the bark is the only part of the desire of the conveniencies and ornaments the wood which, for want of roads and water- of building, dress, equipage, and household carriage, can be sent to market; the timber is furniture, seems to have no limit or certain left to rot upon the ground. When the ma-boundary. Those, therefore, who have the terials of lodging are so superabundant, the command of more food than they themselves part made use of is worth only the labour and can consume, are always willing to exchange expense of fitting it for that use. It affords the surplus, or, what is the same thing, the no rent to the landlord, who generally grants price of it, for gratifications of this other kind. the use of it to whoever takes the trouble of What is over and above satisfying the limited asking it. The demand of wealthier nations, desire, is given for the amusement of those however, sometimes enables him to get a rent desires which cannot be satisfied, but seem to for it. The paving of the streets of London be altogether endless. The poor, in order to has enabled the owners of some barren rocks obtain food, exert themselves to gratity those on the coast of Scotland to draw a rent from fancies of the rich; and to obtain it more cerwhat never afforded any before. The woods tainly, they vie with one another in the cheapof Norway, and of the coasts of the Baltic, ness and perfection of their work. The numfind a market in many parts of Great Britain, ber of workmen increases with the increasing which they could not find at home, and there- quantity of food, or with the growing improveby afford some rent to their proprietors. ment and cultivation of the lands; and as the nature of their business admits of the utmost subdivisions of labour, the quantity of materials which they can work up, increases in a much greater proportion than their numbers. Hence arises a demand for every sort of material which human invention can employ, either usefully or ornamentally, in building, dress, equipage, or household furniture; for the fossils and minerals contained in the bow. els of the earth, the precious metals, and the precious stones. Countries are populous, not in proportion to the number of people whom their produce can clothe and lodge, but in proportion to that of those whom it can feed. When food is provided, it is easy to find the necessary clothing and lodging. But though these are at hand, it may often be difficult to find food. In some parts of the British dominions, what is called a house may be built by one day's labour of one man. The simplest species of clothing, the skins of animals, require somewhat more labour to dress and prepare them for use. Food is, in this manner, not only the origi They do not, however, require anal source of rent, but every other part of the great deal. Among savage or barbarous na- produce of land which afterwards affords rent, tions, a hundredth, or little more than a hun- derives that part of its value from the imdredth part of the labour of the whole year, provement of the powers of labour in prowill be sufficient to provide them with such ducing food, by means of the improvement clothing and lodging as satisfy the greater and cultivation of land. part of the people. All the other ninety-nine parts are frequently no more than enough to provide them with food. Those other parts of the produce of land, however, which afterwards afford rent, do not afford it always. Even in improved and culBut when, by the improvement and culti- tivated countries, the demand for them is not vation of land, the labour of one family can always such as to afford a greater price than provide food for two, the labour of half the what is sufficient to pay the labour, and resociety becomes sufficient to provide food for place, together with its ordinary profits, the the whole. The other half, therefore, or at stock which must be employed in bringing least the greater part of them, can be employ- them to market. Whether it is or is not such, ed in providing other things, or in satisfying depends upon different circumstances. |