THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

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"will be still less sufficient to pay for that produce when itmust be collected with a good deal of additional labour, andbrought into the stable to them. In these circumstances,therefore, no more cattle can be fed in the stable than whatare necessary for tillage. But these can never afford manureenough for keeping constantly in good condition, all the landswhich they are capable of cultivating. What they affordbeing insufficient for the whole farm, will naturally be re-served for the lands to which it can be most advantageouslyor 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 lit for tillage.The rest will, the greater part of them, be allowed to lie waste,producing scarce any thing but some miserable pasture, justsufficient to keep alive a few straggling, half-starved cattle ;the farm, though much under-stocked in proportion to whatwould be necessary for its complete cultivation, being veryfrequently over-stocked in proportion to its actual produce.A portion of this waste land, however, after having been pas-tured in this wretched manner for six or seven years together,may be ploughed up, when it will yield, perhaps, a poor cropor two of bad oats, or of some other coarse grain, and then,being entirely exhausted, it must be rested and pastured againas before, and another portion ploughed up, to be in the samemanner exhausted and rested again in its turn. Such accord-ingly was the general system of management all over thelow country of Scotland before the union. The lands whichwere kept constantly well manured and in good condition,seldom exceeded a third or a fourth part of the whole farm,and sometimes did not amount to a fifth or sixth part of it.The rest were never manured, but a certain portion of themwas in its turn, notwithstanding, regularly cultivated and ex-hausted. Under this system of management, it is evident,even that part of the lands of Scotland which is capable ofgood cultivation, could produce but little in comparison ofwhat it may be capable of producing. But how disadvan-tageous soever this system may appear, yet before the unionthe low price of cattle seems to have rendered it almost un-avoidable. If, notwithstanding a great rise in their price, itstill continues to prevail through a considerable part of thecountry, it is owing, in many places, no doubt, to ignoranceand attachment to old customs, but in most places to the un-avoidable obstructions which the natural course of things

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