THE WEAJ.TII Of NATIONS.

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its price. It affords a good rent, and the landlord sometimesfinds that he can scarce employ his best lands more advan-tageously that in growing barren timber, of which the great-ness of the profit often compensates the lateness of the re-turns. This seems in the present times to be nearly thestate of things in several parts of Great Britain, where theprofit of planting is found to be equal to that of either cornor pasture. The advantage which the landlord derives fromplanting can nowhere exceed, at least for any considerabletime, the rent which these could afford him; and in an in-land country which is highly cultivated, it will frequentlytrot fall much short of this rent. Upon the sea- coast of a well-improved country, indeed, if coals can conveniently be hadfor fuel, it may sometimes be cheaper to bring barren timberfor buildingfrom less cultivated foreign countries than to raiseit at home. In the new town of Edinburgh , built within thesefew years, there is not, perhaps, a single stick of Scotch timber.

Whatever may be the price of wood, if that of coals issuch that the expense of a coal-fire is nearly equal to that ofa wood one, we may be assured, that at that place, and inthese circumstances, the price of coals is as high as it canbe. It seems to be so in some of the inland parts of Eng-land, particularly in Oxfordshire , where it is usual, even inthe fires of the common people, to mix coals and wood to-gether, and where the difference in the expense of those twosorts of fuel cannot, therefore, be very great.

Coals, in the coal countries, are everywhere much belowthis highest price. If they were not, they could not bear theexpense of a distant carriage, either by land or by water. Asmall quantity only could be sold, and the coal masters andcoal proprietors find it more for their interest to sell a greatquantity at a price somewhat above th'e lowest, than a smallquantity at the highest. The most fertile coal-mine, too,regulates the price of coals at all the other mines in its neigh-bourhood. Both the proprietor and the undertaker of thework find, the one that he can get a greater rent, the otherthat he can get a greater profit, by somewhat undersellingall their neighbours. Their neighbours are soon obliged tosell at the same price, though they cannot so well afford it,and though it always diminishes, aivl sometimes takes awayaltogether both their rent and their profit. Some works areabandoned altogether; others can afford no rent, and can bewrought only by the proprietor.