An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📖

command of a stream of

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