172 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OE

It is otherwise iu estates above ground. The value botliof their produce and of their rent is in proportion to theirabsolute, and not to their relative fertility. The land whichproduces a certain quantity of food, clothes, and lodging,can always feed, clothe, and lodge a certain number of peo-ple ; and whatever may be the proportion of the landlord,it will always give him a proportionable command of the la-bour of those people, and of the commodities with whichthat labour can supply him. The value of the most barrenlands is not diminished by the neighbourhood of the mostfertile. On the contrary, it is generally increased by it.The great number of people maintained by the fertile landsafford a market to many parts of the produce of the barren,which they could never have found among those whom theirown produce could maintain.

Whatever increases the fertility of land in producing food,increases not only the value of the lands upon which the im-provement is bestowed, but contributes likewise to increasethat of many other lands, by creating a new demand for theirproduce. That abundance of food, of which, in consequenceof the improvement of land, many people have the disposalbeyond what they themselves can consume, is the great causeof the demand both for the precious metals and the preciousstones, as well as for every other conveniency and ornamentof dress, lodging, household furniture, and equipage. Foodnot only constitutes the principal part of the riches of theworld, but it is the abundance of food which gives theprincipal part of their value to many other sorts of riches.The poor inhabitants of Cuba and St. Domiugo, whenthey were first discovered by the Spaniards, used to wearlittle bits of gold as ornaments in their hair and other partsof their dress. They seemed to value them as we would doany little pebbles of somewhat more than ordinary beauty,and to consider them as just worth the picking up, butnot worth the refusing to any body who asked them. Theygave them to their new guests at the first request, with-out seeming to think that they had made them any very va-luable present. They were astonished to observe the rage°f the Spaniards to obtain them ; and had no notion thatthere could anywhere be a country in which many peoplehad the disposal of so great a superfluity of food, so scantyalways among themselves, that for a very small quantity ofthose glittering baubles they would willingly give as much