Chapter XIX: Part III: Of the variations in the Proportion between the respective (3)

First Sort.—The first sort of rude produce, of which the price rises
in the progress of improvement, is that which it is scarce in the power of
human industry to multiply at all. It consists in those things which
nature produces only in certain quantities, and which being of a very
perishable nature, it is impossible to accumulate together the produce of
many different seasons. Such are the greater part of rare and singular
birds and fishes, many different sorts of game, almost all wild-fowl, all
birds of passage in particular, as well as many other things. When wealth,
and the luxury which accompanies it, increase, the demand for these is
likely to increase with them, and no effort of human industry may be able
to increase the supply much beyond what it was before this increase of the
demand. The quantity of such commodities, therefore, remaining the same,
or nearly the same, while the competition to purchase them is continually
increasing, their price may rise to any degree of extravagance, and seems
not to be limited by any certain boundary. If woodcocks should become so
fashionable as to sell for twenty guineas a-piece, no effort of human
industry could increase the number of those brought to market, much beyond
what it is at present. The high price paid by the Romans, in the time of
their greatest grandeur, for rare birds and fishes, may in this manner
easily be accounted for. These prices were not the effects of the low
value of silver in those times, but of the high value of such rarities and
curiosities as human industry could not multiply at pleasure. The real
value of silver was higher at Rome, for sometime before, and after the
fall of the republic, than it is through the greater part of Europe at
present. Three sestertii equal to about sixpence sterling, was the price
which the republic paid for the modius or peck of the tithe wheat of
Sicily. This price, however, was probably below the average market price,
the obligation to deliver their wheat at this rate being considered as a
tax upon the Sicilian farmers. When the Romans, therefore, had occasion to
order more corn than the tithe of wheat amounted to, they were bound by
capitulation to pay for the surplus at the rate of four sestertii, or
eightpence sterling the peck; and this had probably been reckoned the
moderate and reasonable, that is, the ordinary or average contract price
of those times; it is equal to about one-and-twenty shillings the quarter.
Eight-and-twenty shillings the quarter was, before the late years of
scarcity, the ordinary contract price of English wheat, which in quality
is inferior to the Sicilian, and generally sells for a lower price in the
European market. The value of silver, therefore, in those ancient times,
must have been to its value in the present, as three to four inversely;
that is, three ounces of silver would then have purchased the same
quantity of labour and commodities which four ounces will do at present.
When we read in Pliny, therefore, that Seius {Lib. X, c. 29.} bought a
white nightingale, as a present for the empress Agrippina, at the price of
six thousand sestertii, equal to about fifty pounds of our present money;
and that Asinius Celer {Lib. IX, c. 17.} purchased a surmullet at the
price of eight thousand sestertii, equal to about sixty-six pounds
thirteen shillings and fourpence of our present money; the extravagance of
those prices, how much soever it may surprise us, is apt, notwithstanding,
to appear to us about one third less than it really was. Their real price,
the quantity of labour and subsistence which was given away for them, was
about one-third more than their nominal price is apt to express to us in
the present times. Seius gave for the nightingale the command of a
quantity of labour and subsistence, equal to what £ 66:13: 4d. would
purchase in the present times; and Asinius Celer gave for a surmullet the
command of a quantity equal to what £ 88:17: 9d. would purchase. What
occasioned the extravagance of those high prices was, not so much the
abundance of silver, as the abundance of labour and subsistence, of which
those Romans had the disposal, beyond what was necessary for their own
use. The quantity of silver, of which they had the disposal, was a good
deal less than what the command of the same quantity of labour and
subsistence would have procured to them in the present times.

Second sort.—The second sort of rude produce, of which the price
rises in the progress of improvement, is that which human industry can
multiply in proportion to the demand. It consists in those useful plants
and animals, which, in uncultivated countries, nature produces with such
profuse abundance, that they are of little or no value, and which, as
cultivation advances, are therefore forced to give place to some more
profitable produce. During a long period in the progress of improvement,
the quantity of these is continually diminishing, while, at the same time,
the demand for them is continually increasing. Their real value,
therefore, the real quantity of labour which they will purchase or
command, gradually rises, till at last it gets so high as to render them
as profitable a produce as any thing else which human industry can raise
upon the most fertile and best cultivated land. When it has got so high,
it cannot well go higher. If it did, more land and more industry would
soon be employed to increase their quantity.

When the price of cattle, for example, rises so high, that it is as
profitable to cultivate land in order to raise food for them as in order
to raise food for man, it cannot well go higher. If it did, more corn land
would soon be turned into pasture. The extension of tillage, by
diminishing the quantity of wild pasture, diminishes the quantity of
butcher’s meat, which the country naturally produces without labour or
cultivation; and, by increasing the number of those who have either corn,
or, what comes to the same thing, the price of corn, to give in exchange
for it, increases the demand. The price of butcher’s meat, therefore, and,
consequently, of cattle, must gradually rise, till it gets so high, that
it becomes as profitable to employ the most fertile and best cultivated
lands in raising food for them as in raising corn. But it must always be
late in the progress of improvement before tillage can be so far extended
as to raise the price of cattle to this height; and, till it has got to
this height, if the country is advancing at all, their price must be
continually rising. There are, perhaps, some parts of Europe in which the
price of cattle has not yet got to this height. It had not got to this
height in any part of Scotland before the Union. Had the Scotch cattle
been always confined to the market of Scotland, in a country in which the
quantity of land, which can be applied to no other purpose but the feeding
of cattle, is so great in proportion to what can be applied to other
purposes, it is scarce possible, perhaps, that their price could ever have
risen so high as to render it profitable to cultivate land for the sake of
feeding them. In England, the price of cattle, it has already been
observed, seems, in the neighbourhood of London, to have got to this
height about the beginning of the last century; but it was much later,
probably, before it got through the greater part of the remoter counties,
in some of which, perhaps, it may scarce yet have got to it. Of all the
different substances, however, which compose this second sort of rude
produce, cattle is, perhaps, that of which the price, in the progress of
improvement, rises first to this height.

Till the price of cattle, indeed, has got to this height, it seems scarce
possible that the greater part, even of those lands which are capable of
the highest cultivation, can be completely cultivated. In all farms too
distant from any town to carry manure from it, that is, in the far greater
part of those of every extensive country, the quantity of well cultivated
land must be in proportion to the quantity of manure which the farm itself
produces; and this, again, must be in proportion to the stock of cattle
which are maintained upon it. The land is manured, either by pasturing the
cattle upon it, or by feeding them in the stable, and from thence carrying
out their dung to it. But unless the price of the cattle be sufficient to
pay both the rent and profit of cultivated land, the farmer cannot afford
to pasture them upon it; and he can still less afford to feed them in the
stable. It is with the produce of improved and cultivated land only that
cattle can be fed in the stable; because, to collect the scanty and
scattered produce of waste and unimproved lands, would require too much
labour, and be too expensive. If the price of the cattle, therefore, is
not sufficient to pay for the produce of improved and cultivated land,
when they are allowed to pasture it, that price will be still less
sufficient to pay for that produce, when it must be collected with a good
deal of additional labour, and brought into the stable to them. In these
circumstances, therefore, no more cattle can with profit be fed in the
stable than what are necessary for tillage. But these can never afford
manure enough for keeping constantly in good condition all the lands which
they are capable of cultivating. What they afford, being insufficient for
the whole farm, will naturally be reserved for the lands to which it can
be most advantageously or conveniently applied; the most fertile, or
those, perhaps, in the neighbourhood of the farm-yard. These, therefore,
will be kept constantly in good condition, and fit for tillage. The rest
will, the greater part of them, be allowed to lie waste, producing scarce
any thing but some miserable pasture, just sufficient to keep alive a few
straggling, half-starved cattle; the farm, though much overstocked in
proportion to what would be necessary for its complete cultivation, being
very frequently overstocked in proportion to its actual produce. A portion
of this waste land, however, after having been pastured in this wretched
manner for six or seven years together, may be ploughed up, when it will
yield, perhaps, a poor crop or two of bad oats, or of some other coarse
grain; and then, being entirely exhausted, it must be rested and pastured
again as before, and another portion ploughed up, to be in the same manner
exhausted and rested again in its turn. Such, accordingly, was the general
system of management all over the low country of Scotland before the
Union. The lands which were kept constantly well manured and in good
condition seldom exceeded a third or fourth part of the whole farm, and
sometimes did not amount to a fifth or a sixth part of it. The rest were
never manured, but a certain portion of them was in its turn,
notwithstanding, regularly cultivated and exhausted. Under this system of
management, it is evident, even that part of the lands of Scotland which
is capable of good cultivation, could produce but little in comparison of
what it may be capable of producing. But how disadvantageous soever this
system may appear, yet, before the Union, the low price of cattle seems to
have rendered it almost unavoidable. If, notwithstanding a great rise in
the price, it still continues to prevail through a considerable part of
the country, it is owing in many places, no doubt, to ignorance and
attachment to old customs, but, in most places, to the unavoidable
obstructions which the natural course of things opposes to the immediate
or speedy establishment of a better system: first, to the poverty of the
tenants, to their not having yet had time to acquire a stock of cattle
sufficient to cultivate their lands more completely, the same rise of
price, which would render it advantageous for them to maintain a greater
stock, rendering it more difficult for them to acquire it; and, secondly,
to their not having yet had time to put their lands in condition to
maintain this greater stock properly, supposing they were capable of
acquiring it. The increase of stock and the improvement of land are two
events which must go hand in hand, and of which the one can nowhere much
outrun the other. Without some increase of stock, there can be scarce any
improvement of land, but there can be no considerable increase of stock,
but in consequence of a considerable improvement of land; because
otherwise the land could not maintain it. These natural obstructions to
the establishment of a better system, cannot be removed but by a long
course of frugality and industry; and half a century or a century more,
perhaps, must pass away before the old system, which is wearing out
gradually, can be completely abolished through all the different parts of
the country. Of all the commercial advantages, however, which Scotland has
derived from the Union with England, this rise in the price of cattle is,
perhaps, the greatest. It has not only raised the value of all highland
estates, but it has, perhaps, been the principal cause of the improvement
of the low country.

In all new colonies, the great quantity of waste land, which can for many
years be applied to no other purpose but the feeding of cattle, soon
renders them extremely abundant; and in every thing great cheapness is the
necessary consequence of great abundance. Though all the cattle of the
European colonies in America were originally carried from Europe, they
soon multiplied so much there, and became of so little value, that even
horses were allowed to run wild in the woods, without any owner thinking
it worth while to claim them. It must be a long time after the first
establishment of such colonies, before it can become profitable to feed
cattle upon the produce of cultivated land. The same causes, therefore,
the want of manure, and the disproportion between the stock employed in
cultivation and the land which it is destined to cultivate, are likely to
introduce there a system of husbandry, not unlike that which still
continues to take place in so many parts of Scotland. Mr Kalm, the Swedish
traveller, when he gives an account of the husbandry of some of the
English colonies in North America, as he found it in 1749, observes,
accordingly, that he can with difficulty discover there the character of
the English nation, so well skilled in all the different branches of
agriculture. They make scarce any manure for their corn fields, he says;
but when one piece of ground has been exhausted by continual cropping,
they clear and cultivate another piece of fresh land; and when that is
exhausted, proceed to a third. Their cattle are allowed to wander through
the woods and other uncultivated grounds, where they are half-starved;
having long ago extirpated almost all the annual grasses, by cropping them
too early in the spring, before they had time to form their flowers, or to
shed their seeds. {Kalm’s Travels, vol 1, pp. 343, 344.} The annual
grasses were, it seems, the best natural grasses in that part of North
America; and when the Europeans first settled there, they used to grow
very thick, and to rise three or four feet high. A piece of ground which,
when he wrote, could not maintain one cow, would in former times, he was
assured, have maintained four, each of which would have given four times
the quantity of milk which that one was capable of giving. The poorness of
the pasture had, in his opinion, occasioned the degradation of their
cattle, which degenerated sensibly from one generation to another. They
were probably not unlike that stunted breed which was common all over
Scotland thirty or forty years ago, and which is now so much mended
through the greater part of the low country, not so much by a change of
the breed, though that expedient has been employed in some places, as by a
more plentiful method of feeding them.

Though it is late, therefore, in the progress of improvement, before
cattle can bring such a price as to render it profitable to cultivate land
for the sake of feeding them; yet of all the different parts which compose
this second sort of rude produce, they are perhaps the first which bring
this price; because, till they bring it, it seems impossible that
improvement can be brought near even to that degree of perfection to which
it has arrived in many parts of Europe.

As cattle are among the first, so perhaps venison is among the last parts
of this sort of rude produce which bring this price. The price of venison
in Great Britain, how extravagant soever it may appear, is not near
sufficient to compensate the expense of a deer park, as is well known to
all those who have had any experience in the feeding of deer. If it was
otherwise, the feeding of deer would soon become an article of common
farming, in the same manner as the feeding of those small birds, called
turdi, was among the ancient Romans. Varro and Columella assure us, that
it was a most profitable article. The fattening of ortolans, birds of
passage which arrive lean in the country, is said to be so in some parts
of France. If venison continues in fashion, and the wealth and luxury of
Great Britain increase as they have done for some time past, its price may
very probably rise still higher than it is at present.

Between that period in the progress of improvement, which brings to its
height the price of so necessary an article as cattle, and that which
brings to it the price of such a superfluity as venison, there is a very
long interval, in the course of which many other sorts of rude produce
gradually arrive at their highest price, some sooner and some later,
according to different circumstances.

Thus, in every farm, the offals of the barn and stable will maintain a
certain number of poultry. These, as they are fed with what would
otherwise be lost, are a mere save-all; and as they cost the farmer scarce
any thing, so he can afford to sell them for very little. Almost all that
he gets is pure gain, and their price can scarce be so low as to
discourage him from feeding this number. But in countries ill cultivated,
and therefore but thinly inhabited, the poultry, which are thus raised
without expense, are often fully sufficient to supply the whole demand. In
this state of things, therefore, they are often as cheap as butcher’s
meat, or any other sort of animal food. But the whole quantity of poultry
which the farm in this manner produces without expense, must always be
much smaller than the whole quantity of butcher’s meat which is reared
upon it; and in times of wealth and luxury, what is rare, with only nearly
equal merit, is always preferred to what is common. As wealth and luxury
increase, therefore, in consequence of improvement and cultivation, the
price of poultry gradually rises above that of butcher’s meat, till at
last it gets so high, that it becomes profitable to cultivate land for the
sake of feeding them. When it has got to this height, it cannot well go
higher. If it did, more land would soon be turned to this purpose. In
several provinces of France, the feeding of poultry is considered as a
very important article in rural economy, and sufficiently profitable to
encourage the farmer to raise a considerable quantity of Indian corn and
buckwheat for this purpose. A middling farmer will there sometimes have
four hundred fowls in his yard. The feeding of poultry seems scarce yet to
be generally considered as a matter of so much importance in England. They
are certainly, however, dearer in England than in France, as England
receives considerable supplies from France. In the progress of
improvements, the period at which every particular sort of animal food is
dearest, must naturally be that which immediately precedes the general
practice of cultivating land for the sake of raising it. For some time
before this practice becomes general, the scarcity must necessarily raise
the price. After it has become general, new methods of feeding are
commonly fallen upon, which enable the farmer to raise upon the same
quantity of ground a much greater quantity of that particular sort of
animal food. The plenty not only obliges him to sell cheaper, but, in
consequence of these improvements, he can afford to sell cheaper; for if
he could not afford it, the plenty would not be of long continuance. It
has been probably in this manner that the introduction of clover, turnips,
carrots, cabbages, etc. has contributed to sink the common price of
butcher’s meat in the London market, somewhat below what it was about the
beginning of the last century.

The hog, that finds his food among ordure, and greedily devours many
things rejected by every other useful animal, is, like poultry, originally
kept as a save-all. As long as the number of such animals, which can thus
be reared at little or no expense, is fully sufficient to supply the
demand, this sort of butcher’s meat comes to market at a much lower price
than any other. But when the demand rises beyond what this quantity can
supply, when it becomes necessary to raise food on purpose for feeding and
fattening hogs, in the same manner as for feeding and fattening other
cattle, the price necessarily rises, and becomes proportionably either
higher or lower than that of other butcher’s meat, according as the nature
of the country, and the state of its agriculture, happen to render the
feeding of hogs more or less expensive than that of other cattle. In
France, according to Mr Buffon, the price of pork is nearly equal to that
of beef. In most parts of Great Britain it is at present somewhat higher.

The great rise in the price both of hogs and poultry, has, in Great
Britain, been frequently imputed to the diminution of the number of
cottagers and other small occupiers of land; an event which has in every
part of Europe been the immediate forerunner of improvement and better
cultivation, but which at the same time may have contributed to raise the
price of those articles, both somewhat sooner and somewhat faster than it
would otherwise have risen. As the poorest family can often maintain a cat
or a dog without any expense, so the poorest occupiers of land can
commonly maintain a few poultry, or a sow and a few pigs, at very little.
The little offals of their own table, their whey, skimmed milk, and butter
milk, supply those animals with a part of their food, and they find the
rest in the neighbouring fields, without doing any sensible damage to any
body. By diminishing the number of those small occupiers, therefore, the
quantity of this sort of provisions, which is thus produced at little or
no expense, must certainly have been a good deal diminished, and their
price must consequently have been raised both sooner and faster than it
would otherwise have risen. Sooner or later, however, in the progress of
improvement, it must at any rate have risen to the utmost height to which
it is capable of rising; or to the price which pays the labour and expense
of cultivating the land which furnishes them with food, as well as these
are paid upon the greater part of other cultivated land.

The business of the dairy, like the feeding of hogs and poultry, is
originally carried on as a save-all. The cattle necessarily kept upon the
farm produce more milk than either the rearing of their own young, or the
consumption of the farmer’s family requires; and they produce most at one
particular season. But of all the productions of land, milk is perhaps the
most perishable. In the warm season, when it is most abundant, it will
scarce keep four-and-twenty hours. The farmer, by making it into fresh
butter, stores a small part of it for a week; by making it into salt
butter, for a year; and by making it into cheese, he stores a much greater
part of it for several years. Part of all these is reserved for the use of
his own family; the rest goes to market, in order to find the best price
which is to be had, and which can scarce be so low is to discourage him
from sending thither whatever is over and above the use of his own family.
If it is very low indeed, he will be likely to manage his dairy in a very
slovenly and dirty manner, and will scarce, perhaps, think it worth while
to have a particular room or building on purpose for it, but will suffer
the business to be carried on amidst the smoke, filth, and nastiness of
his own kitchen, as was the case of almost all the farmers’ dairies in
Scotland thirty or forty years ago, and as is the case of many of them
still. The same causes which gradually raise the price of butcher’s meat,
the increase of the demand, and, in consequence of the improvement of the
country, the diminution of the quantity which can be fed at little or no
expense, raise, in the same manner, that of the produce of the dairy, of
which the price naturally connects with that of butcher’s meat, or with
the expense of feeding cattle. The increase of price pays for more labour,
care, and cleanliness. The dairy becomes more worthy of the farmer’s
attention, and the quality of its produce gradually improves. The price at
last gets so high, that it becomes worth while to employ some of the most
fertile and best cultivated lands in feeding cattle merely for the purpose
of the dairy; and when it has got to this height, it cannot well go
higher. If it did, more land would soon be turned to this purpose. It
seems to have got to this height through the greater part of England,
where much good land is commonly employed in this manner. If you except
the neighbourhood of a few considerable towns, it seems not yet to have
got to this height anywhere in Scotland, where common farmers seldom
employ much good land in raising food for cattle, merely for the purpose
of the dairy. The price of the produce, though it has risen very
considerably within these few years, is probably still too low to admit of
it. The inferiority of the quality, indeed, compared with that of the
produce of English dairies, is fully equal to that of the price. But this
inferiority of quality is, perhaps, rather the effect of this lowness of
price, than the cause of it. Though the quality was much better, the
greater part of what is brought to market could not, I apprehend, in the
present circumstances of the country, be disposed of at a much better
price; and the present price, it is probable, would not pay the expense of
the land and labour necessary for producing a much better quality. Through
the greater part of England, notwithstanding the superiority of price, the
dairy is not reckoned a more profitable employment of land than the
raising of corn, or the fattening of cattle, the two great objects of
agriculture. Through the greater part of Scotland, therefore, it cannot
yet be even so profitable.

The lands of no country, it is evident, can ever be completely cultivated
and improved, till once the price of every produce, which human industry
is obliged to raise upon them, has got so high as to pay for the expense
of complete improvement and cultivation. In order to do this, the price of
each particular produce must be sufficient, first, to pay the rent of good
corn land, as it is that which regulates the rent of the greater part of
other cultivated land; and, secondly, to pay the labour and expense of the
farmer, as well as they are commonly paid upon good corn land; or, in
other words, to replace with the ordinary profits the stock which he
employs about it. This rise in the price of each particular produce; must
evidently be previous to the improvement and cultivation of the land which
is destined for raising it. Gain is the end of all improvement; and
nothing could deserve that name, of which loss was to be the necessary
consequence. But loss must be the necessary consequence of improving land
for the sake of a produce of which the price could never bring back the
expense. If the complete improvement and cultivation of the country be, as
it most certainly is, the greatest of all public advantages, this rise in
the price of all those different sorts of rude produce, instead of being
considered as a public calamity, ought to be regarded as the necessary
forerunner and attendant of the greatest of all public advantages.

This rise, too, in the nominal or money price of all those different sorts
of rude produce, has been the effect, not of any degradation in the value
of silver, but of a rise in their real price. They have become worth, not
only a greater quantity of silver, but a greater quantity of labour and
subsistence than before. As it costs a greater quantity of labour and
subsistence to bring them to market, so, when they are brought thither
they represent, or are equivalent to a greater quantity.

Third Sort.—The third and last sort of rude produce, of which the
price naturally rises in the progress of improvement, is that in which the
efficacy of human industry, in augmenting the quantity, is either limited
or uncertain. Though the real price of this sort of rude produce,
therefore, naturally tends to rise in the progress of improvement, yet,
according as different accidents happen to render the efforts of human
industry more or less successful in augmenting the quantity, it may happen
sometimes even to fall, sometimes to continue the same, in very different
periods of improvement, and sometimes to rise more or less in the same
period.

There are some sorts of rude produce which nature has rendered a kind of
appendages to other sorts; so that the quantity of the one which any
country can afford, is necessarily limited by that of the other. The
quantity of wool or of raw hides, for example, which any country can
afford, is necessarily limited by the number of great and small cattle
that are kept in it. The state of its improvement, and the nature of its
agriculture, again necessarily determine this number.

The same causes which, in the progress of improvement, gradually raise the
price of butcher’s meat, should have the same effect, it may be thought,
upon the prices of wool and raw hides, and raise them, too, nearly in the
same proportion. It probably would be so, if, in the rude beginnings of
improvement, the market for the latter commodities was confined within as
narrow bounds as that for the former. But the extent of their respective
markets is commonly extremely different.

The market for butcher’s meat is almost everywhere confined to the country
which produces it. Ireland, and some part of British America, indeed,
carry on a considerable trade in salt provisions; but they are, I believe,
the only countries in the commercial world which do so, or which export to
other countries any considerable part of their butcher’s meat.

The market for wool and raw hides, on the contrary, is, in the rude
beginnings of improvement, very seldom confined to the country which
produces them. They can easily be transported to distant countries; wool
without any preparation, and raw hides with very little; and as they are
the materials of many manufactures, the industry of other countries may
occasion a demand for them, though that of the country which produces them
might not occasion any.

In countries ill cultivated, and therefore but thinly inhabited, the price
of the wool and the hide bears always a much greater proportion to that of
the whole beast, than in countries where, improvement and population being
further advanced, there is more demand for butcher’s meat. Mr Hume
observes, that in the Saxon times, the fleece was estimated at two-fifths
of the value of the whole sheep and that this was much above the
proportion of its present estimation. In some provinces of Spain, I have
been assured, the sheep is frequently killed merely for the sake of the
fleece and the tallow. The carcase is often left to rot upon the ground,
or to be devoured by beasts and birds of prey. If this sometimes happens
even in Spain, it happens almost constantly in Chili, at Buenos Ayres, and
in many other parts of Spanish America, where the horned cattle are almost
constantly killed merely for the sake of the hide and the tallow. This,
too, used to happen almost constantly in Hispaniola, while it was infested
by the buccaneers, and before the settlement, improvement, and
populousness of the French plantations ( which now extend round the coast
of almost the whole western half of the island) had given some value to
the cattle of the Spaniards, who still continue to possess, not only the
eastern part of the coast, but the whole inland mountainous part of the
country.

Though, in the progress of improvement and population, the price of the
whole beast necessarily rises, yet the price of the carcase is likely to
be much more affected by this rise than that of the wool and the hide. The
market for the carcase being in the rude state of society confined always
to the country which produces it, must necessarily be extended in
proportion to the improvement and population of that country. But the
market for the wool and the hides, even of a barbarous country, often
extending to the whole commercial world, it can very seldom be enlarged in
the same proportion. The state of the whole commercial world can seldom be
much affected by the improvement of any particular country; and the market
for such commodities may remain the same, or very nearly the same, after
such improvements, as before. It should, however, in the natural course of
things, rather, upon the whole, be somewhat extended in consequence of
them. If the manufactures, especially, of which those commodities are the
materials, should ever come to flourish in the country, the market, though
it might not be much enlarged, would at least be brought much nearer to
the place of growth than before; and the price of those materials might at
least be increased by what had usually been the expense of transporting
them to distant countries. Though it might not rise, therefore, in the
same proportion as that of butcher’s meat, it ought naturally to rise
somewhat, and it ought certainly not to fall.

In England, however, notwithstanding the flourishing state of its woollen
manufacture, the price of English wool has fallen very considerably since
the time of Edward III. There are many authentic records which demonstrate
that, during the reign of that prince (towards the middle of the
fourteenth century, or about 1339), what was reckoned the moderate and
reasonable price of the tod, or twenty-eight pounds of English wool, was
not less than ten shillings of the money of those times {See Smith’s
Memoirs of Wool, vol. i c. 5, 6, 7. also vol. ii.}, containing, at the
rate of twenty-pence the ounce, six ounces of silver, Tower weight, equal
to about thirty shillings of our present money. In the present times,
one-and-twenty shillings the tod may be reckoned a good price for very
good English wool. The money price of wool, therefore, in the time of
Edward III. was to its money price in the present times as ten to seven.
The superiority of its real price was still greater. At the rate of six
shillings and eightpence the quarter, ten shillings was in those ancient
times the price of twelve bushels of wheat. At the rate of twenty-eight
shillings the quarter, one-and-twenty shillings is in the present times
the price of six bushels only. The proportion between the real price of
ancient and modern times, therefore, is as twelve to six, or as two to
one. In those ancient times, a tod of wool would have purchased twice the
quantity of subsistence which it will purchase at present, and
consequently twice the quantity of labour, if the real recompence of
labour had been the same in both periods.

This degradation, both in the real and nominal value of wool, could never
have happened in consequence of the natural course of things. It has
accordingly been the effect of violence and artifice. First, of the
absolute prohibition of exporting wool from England: secondly, of the
permission of importing it from Spain, duty free: thirdly, of the
prohibition of exporting it from Ireland to another country but England.
In consequence of these regulations, the market for English wool, instead
of being somewhat extended, in consequence of the improvement of England,
has been confined to the home market, where the wool of several other
countries is allowed to come into competition with it, and where that of
Ireland is forced into competition with it. As the woollen manufactures,
too, of Ireland, are fully as much discouraged as is consistent with
justice and fair dealing, the Irish can work up but a smaller part of
their own wool at home, and are therefore obliged to send a greater
proportion of it to Great Britain, the only market they are allowed.

I have not been able to find any such authentic records concerning the
price of raw hides in ancient times. Wool was commonly paid as a subsidy
to the king, and its valuation in that subsidy ascertains, at least in
some degree, what was its ordinary price. But this seems not to have been
the case with raw hides. Fleetwood, however, from an account in 1425,
between the prior of Burcester Oxford and one of his canons, gives us
their price, at least as it was stated upon that particular occasion, viz.
five ox hides at twelve shillings; five cow hides at seven shillings and
threepence; thirtysix sheep skins of two years old at nine shillings;
sixteen calf skins at two shillings. In 1425, twelve shillings contained
about the same quantity of silver as four-and-twenty shillings of our
present money. An ox hide, therefore, was in this account valued at the
same quantity of silver as 4s. ⅘ths of our present money. Its nominal
price was a good deal lower than at present. But at the rate of six
shillings and eightpence the quarter, twelve shillings would in those
times have purchased fourteen bushels and four-fifths of a bushel of
wheat, which, at three and sixpence the bushel, would in the present times
cost 51s. 4d. An ox hide, therefore, would in those times have purchased
as much corn as ten shillings and threepence would purchase at present.
Its real value was equal to ten shillings and threepence of our present
money. In those ancient times, when the cattle were half starved during
the greater part of the winter, we cannot suppose that they were of a very
large size. An ox hide which weighs four stone of sixteen pounds of
avoirdupois, is not in the present times reckoned a bad one; and in those
ancient times would probably have been reckoned a very good one. But at
half-a-crown the stone, which at this moment (February 1773) I understand
to be the common price, such a hide would at present cost only ten
shillings. Through its nominal price, therefore, is higher in the present
than it was in those ancient times, its real price, the real quantity of
subsistence which it will purchase or command, is rather somewhat lower.
The price of cow hides, as stated in the above account, is nearly in the
common proportion to that of ox hides. That of sheep skins is a good deal
above it. They had probably been sold with the wool. That of calves skins,
on the contrary, is greatly below it. In countries where the price of
cattle is very low, the calves, which are not intended to be reared in
order to keep up the stock, are generally killed very young, as was the
case in Scotland twenty or thirty years ago. It saves the milk, which
their price would not pay for. Their skins, therefore, are commonly good
for little.

The price of raw hides is a good deal lower at present than it was a few
years ago; owing probably to the taking off the duty upon seal skins, and
to the allowing, for a limited time, the importation of raw hides from
Ireland, and from the plantations, duty free, which was done in 1769. Take
the whole of the present century at an average, their real price has
probably been somewhat higher than it was in those ancient times. The
nature of the commodity renders it not quite so proper for being
transported to distant markets as wool. It suffers more by keeping. A
salted hide is reckoned inferior to a fresh one, and sells for a lower
price. This circumstance must necessarily have some tendency to sink the
price of raw hides produced in a country which does not manufacture them,
but is obliged to export them, and comparatively to raise that of those
produced in a country which does manufacture them. It must have some
tendency to sink their price in a barbarous, and to raise it in an
improved and manufacturing country. It must have had some tendency,
therefore, to sink it in ancient, and to raise it in modern times. Our
tanners, besides, have not been quite so successful as our clothiers, in
convincing the wisdom of the nation, that the safety of the commonwealth
depends upon the prosperity of their particular manufacture. They have
accordingly been much less favoured. The exportation of raw hides has,
indeed, been prohibited, and declared a nuisance; but their importation
from foreign countries has been subjected to a duty; and though this duty
has been taken off from those of Ireland and the plantations (for the
limited time of five years only), yet Ireland has not been confined to the
market of Great Britain for the sale of its surplus hides, or of those
which are not manufactured at home. The hides of common cattle have, but
within these few years, been put among the enumerated commodities which
the plantations can send nowhere but to the mother country; neither has
the commerce of Ireland been in this case oppressed hitherto, in order to
support the manufactures of Great Britain.

Whatever regulations tend to sink the price, either of wool or of raw
hides, below what it naturally would be, must, in an improved and
cultivated country, have some tendency to raise the price of butcher’s
meat. The price both of the great and small cattle, which are fed on
improved and cultivated land, must be sufficient to pay the rent which the
landlord, and the profit which the farmer, has reason to expect from
improved and cultivated land. If it is not, they will soon cease to feed
them. Whatever part of this price, therefore, is not paid by the wool and
the hide, must be paid by the carcase. The less there is paid for the one,
the more must be paid for the other. In what manner this price is to be
divided upon the different parts of the beast, is indifferent to the
landlords and farmers, provided it is all paid to them. In an improved and
cultivated country, therefore, their interest as landlords and farmers
cannot be much affected by such regulations, though their interest as
consumers may, by the rise in the price of provisions. It would be quite
otherwise, however, in an unimproved and uncultivated country, where the
greater part of the lands could be applied to no other purpose but the
feeding of cattle, and where the wool and the hide made the principal part
of the value of those cattle. Their interest as landlords and farmers
would in this case be very deeply affected by such regulations, and their
interest as consumers very little. The fall in the price of the wool and
the hide would not in this case raise the price of the carcase; because
the greater part of the lands of the country being applicable to no other
purpose but the feeding of cattle, the same number would still continue to
be fed. The same quantity of butcher’s meat would still come to market.
The demand for it would be no greater than before. Its price, therefore,
would be the same as before. The whole price of cattle would fall, and
along with it both the rent and the profit of all those lands of which
cattle was the principal produce, that is, of the greater part of the
lands of the country. The perpetual prohibition of the exportation of
wool, which is commonly, but very falsely, ascribed to Edward III., would,
in the then circumstances of the country, have been the most destructive
regulation which could well have been thought of. It would not only have
reduced the actual value of the greater part of the lands in the kingdom,
but by reducing the price of the most important species of small cattle,
it would have retarded very much its subsequent improvement.

The wool of Scotland fell very considerably in its price in consequence of
the union with England, by which it was excluded from the great market of
Europe, and confined to the narrow one of Great Britain. The value of the
greater part of the lands in the southern counties of Scotland, which are
chiefly a sheep country, would have been very deeply affected by this
event, had not the rise in the price of butcher’s meat fully compensated
the fall in the price of wool.

As the efficacy of human industry, in increasing the quantity either of
wool or of raw hides, is limited, so far as it depends upon the produce of
the country where it is exerted; so it is uncertain so far as it depends
upon the produce of other countries. It so far depends not so much upon
the quantity which they produce, as upon that which they do not
manufacture; and upon the restraints which they may or may not think
proper to impose upon the exportation of this sort of rude produce. These
circumstances, as they are altogether independent of domestic industry, so
they necessarily render the efficacy of its efforts more or less
uncertain. In multiplying this sort of rude produce, therefore, the
efficacy of human industry is not only limited, but uncertain.

In multiplying another very important sort of rude produce, the quantity
of fish that is brought to market, it is likewise both limited and
uncertain. It is limited by the local situation of the country, by the
proximity or distance of its different provinces from the sea, by the
number of its lakes and rivers, and by what may be called the fertility or
barrenness of those seas, lakes, and rivers, as to this sort of rude
produce. As population increases, as the annual produce of the land and
labour of the country grows greater and greater, there come to be more
buyers of fish; and those buyers, too, have a greater quantity and variety
of other goods, or, what is the same thing, the price of a greater
quantity and variety of other goods, to buy with. But it will generally be
impossible to supply the great and extended market, without employing a
quantity of labour greater than in proportion to what had been requisite
for supplying the narrow and confined one. A market which, from requiring
only one thousand, comes to require annually ten thousand ton of fish, can
seldom be supplied, without employing more than ten times the quantity of
labour which had before been sufficient to supply it. The fish must
generally be sought for at a greater distance, larger vessels must be
employed, and more expensive machinery of every kind made use of. The real
price of this commodity, therefore, naturally rises in the progress of
improvement. It has accordingly done so, I believe, more or less in every
country.

Though the success of a particular day’s fishing may be a very uncertain
matter, yet the local situation of the country being supposed, the general
efficacy of industry in bringing a certain quantity of fish to market,
taking the course of a year, or of several years together, it may,
perhaps, be thought is certain enough; and it, no doubt, is so. As it
depends more, however, upon the local situation of the country, than upon
the state of its wealth and industry; as upon this account it may in
different countries be the same in very different periods of improvement,
and very different in the same period; its connection with the state of
improvement is uncertain; and it is of this sort of uncertainty that I am
here speaking.

In increasing the quantity of the different minerals and metals which are
drawn from the bowels of the earth, that of the more precious ones
particularly, the efficacy of human industry seems not to be limited, but
to be altogether uncertain.

The quantity of the precious metals which is to be found in any country,
is not limited by any thing in its local situation, such as the fertility
or barrenness of its own mines. Those metals frequently abound in
countries which possess no mines. Their quantity, in every particular
country, seems to depend upon two different circumstances; first, upon its
power of purchasing, upon the state of its industry, upon the annual
produce of its land and labour, in consequence of which it can afford to
employ a greater or a smaller quantity of labour and subsistence, in
bringing or purchasing such superfluities as gold and silver, either from
its own mines, or from those of other countries; and, secondly, upon the
fertility or barrenness of the mines which may happen at any particular
time to supply the commercial world with those metals. The quantity of
those metals in the countries most remote from the mines, must be more or
less affected by this fertility or barrenness, on account of the easy and
cheap transportation of those metals, of their small bulk and great value.
Their quantity in China and Indostan must have been more or less affected
by the abundance of the mines of America.

So far as their quantity in any particular country depends upon the former
of those two circumstances (the power of purchasing), their real price,
like that of all other luxuries and superfluities, is likely to rise with
the wealth and improvement of the country, and to fall with its poverty
and depression. Countries which have a great quantity of labour and
subsistence to spare, can afford to purchase any particular quantity of
those metals at the expense of a greater quantity of labour and
subsistence, than countries which have less to spare.

So far as their quantity in any particular country depends upon the latter
of those two circumstances (the fertility or barrenness of the mines which
happen to supply the commercial world), their real price, the real
quantity of labour and subsistence which they will purchase or exchange
for, will, no doubt, sink more or less in proportion to the fertility, and
rise in proportion to the barrenness of those mines.