An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith (ebooks children's books free .TXT) 📗
- Author: Adam Smith
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water, which could be conducted to every bed in the garden. Through the
greater part of Europe, a kitchen garden is not at present supposed to
deserve a better inclosure than mat recommended by Columella. In Great
Britain, and some other northern countries, the finer fruits cannot Be
brought to perfection but by the assistance of a wall. Their price,
therefore, in such countries, must be sufficient to pay the expense of
building and maintaining what they cannot be had without. The fruit-wall
frequently surrounds the kitchen garden, which thus enjoys the benefit of an
inclosure which its own produce could seldom pay for.
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 improvement. Such comparisons, however,
between the profit and expense of new projects are commonly very fallacious
; and in nothing more so than in agriculture. Had the gain actually made by
such plantations been commonly as great as he imagined it might have been,
there could have been no dispute about it. The same point is frequently at
this day a matter of controversy in the wine countries. 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 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 from the king, to be granted only in
consequence of an information from the intendant of the province, certifying
that he had examined the land, and that it was incapable of any other
culture. The pretence of this order was the scarcity of corn and pasture,
and the superabundance of wine. But had this superabundance been real, it
would, without any order of council, have effectually prevented the
plantation of new vineyards, by reducing the profits of this species of
cultivation below their natural proportion to those of corn and pasture.
With regard to the supposed scarcity of corn occasioned by the
multiplication of vineyards, corn is nowhere in France more carefully
cultivated than in the wine provinces, where the land is fit for producing
it: as in Burgundy, Guienne, and the Upper Languedoc. The numerous hands
employed in the one species of cultivation necessarily encourage the other,
by affording a ready market for its produce. To diminish the number of those
who are capable of paying it, is surely 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.
It sometimes happens, indeed, that the quantity of land which can be fitted
for some particular produce, is too small to supply the effectual demand.
The whole produce can be disposed of to those who are willing to give
somewhat more than what is sufficient to pay the whole rent, wages, and
profit, necessary for raising and bringing it to market, according to their
natural rates, or according to the rates at which they are paid in the
greater part of other cultivated land. The surplus 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 usual and natural proportion, for example, between the rent and profit
of wine, and those 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 vineyards only, that the common land of the
country can be brought into competition ; for with those of a peculiar
quality it is evident that it cannot.
The vine is more affected by the difference of soils than any other
fruit-tree. From some it derives a flavour which no culture or management
can equal, it is supposed, upon any other. This flavour, real or imaginary,
is sometimes peculiar to the produce of a few vineyards; sometimes it
extends through the greater part of a small district, and sometimes through
a considerable part of a large province. The whole quantity of such wines
that is brought to market falls short of the effectual demand, or the demand
of those who would be willing to pay the whole rent, profit, and wages,
necessary for preparing and bringing them thither, according to the ordinary
rate, or according to the rate at which they are paid in common vineyards.
The whole quantity, therefore, can be disposed of to those who are willing
to pay more, which necessarily raises their price above that of common wine.
The difference is greater or less, according as the fashionableness and
scarcity of the wine render the competition of the buyers more or less
eager. Whatever it be, the greater part of it goes to the rent of the
landlord. For though such vineyards are in general more carefully cultivated
than most others, the high price of the wine seems to be, not so much the
effect, as the cause of this careful cultivation. In so valuable a produce,
the loss occasioned by negligence is so great, as to force even the most
careless to attention. A small part of this high price, therefore, is
sufficient to pay the wages of the extraordinary labour bestowed upon their
cultivation, and the profits of the extraordinary stock which puts that
labour into motion.
The sugar colonies possessed by the European nations in the West Indies may
be compared to those precious vineyards. Their whole produce falls short of
the effectual demand of Europe, and can be disposed of to those who are
willing to give more than what is sufficient to pay the whole rent, profit,
and wages, necessary for preparing and bringing it to market, according to
the rate at which they are commonly paid by any other produce. In Cochin
China, the finest white sugar generally sells for three piastres the
quintal, about thirteen shillings and sixpence of our money, as we are told
by Mr Poivre {Voyages d’un Philosophe.}, a very careful observer of the
agriculture of that country. What is there called the quintal, weighs from a
hundred and fifty to two hundred Paris pounds, or a hundred and seventy-five
Paris pounds at a medium, which reduces the price of the hundred weight
English to about eight shillings sterling; not a fourth part of what is
commonly paid for the brown or muscovada sugars imported from our colonies,
and not a sixth part of what is paid for the finest white sugar. The greater
part of the cultivated lands in Cochin China are employed in producing corn
and rice, the food of the great body of the people. The respective prices of
corn, rice, and sugar, are there probably in the natural proportion, or in
that which naturally takes place in the different crops of the greater part
of cultivated land, and which recompenses the landlord and farmer, as nearly
as can be computed, according to what is usually the original expense of
improvement, and the annual expense of cultivation. But in our sugar
colonies, the price of sugar bears no such proportion to that of the produce
of a rice or corn field either in Europe or America. It is commonly said
that a sugar planter expects that the rum and the molasses should defray the
whole expense of his cultivation, and that his sugar should be all clear
profit. If this be true, for I pretend not to affirm it, it is as if a corn
farmer expected to defray the expense of his cultivation with the chaff and
the straw, and that the grain should be all clear profit. We see frequently
societies of merchants in London, and other trading towns, purchase waste
lands in our sugar colonies, which they expect to improve and cultivate with
profit, by means of factors and agents, notwithstanding the great
distance and the uncertain returns, from the defective administration of
justice in those countries. Nobody will attempt to improve and cultivate in
the same manner the most fertile lands of Scotland, Ireland, or the corn
provinces of North America, though, from the more exact administration of
justice in these countries, more regular returns might be expected.
In Virginia and Maryland, the cultivation of tobacco is preferred, as most
profitable, to that of corn. Tobacco might be cultivated with advantage
through the greater part of Europe ; but, in almost every part of Europe, it
has become a principal subject of taxation ; and to collect a tax from every
different farm in the country where this plant might happen to be
cultivated, would be more difficult, it has been supposed, than to levy one
upon its importation at the custom-house. The cultivation of tobacco has,
upon this account, been most absurdly prohibited through the greater part of
Europe, which necessarily gives a sort of monopoly to the countries where it
is allowed ; and as Virginia and Maryland produce the greatest quantity of
it, they share largely, though with some competitors, in the advantage of
this monopoly. The cultivation of tobacco, however, seems not to be so
advantageous as that of sugar. I have never even heard of any tobacco
plantation that was improved and cultivated by the capital of merchants who
resided in Great Britain; and our tobacco colonies send us home no such
wealthy planters as we see frequently arrive from our sugar islands. Though,
from the preference given in those colonies to the cultivation of tobacco
above that of corn, it would appear that the effectual demand of Europe for
tobacco is not completely supplied, it probably is more nearly so than that
for sugar; and though the present price of tobacco is probably more than
sufficient to pay the whole rent, wages, and profit, necessary for preparing
and bringing it to market, according to the rate at which they are commonly
paid in corn land, it must not be so much more as the present price of
sugar. Our tobacco planters, accordingly, have shewn the same fear of the
superabundance of tobacco, which the
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