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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

opposes to the immediate or speedy establishment of a bettersystem: first, to the poverty of the tenants, to their not havingyet had time to acquire a stock of cattle sufficient to cultivatetheir lands more completely, the same rise of price whichwould render it advantageous for them to maintain a greaterstock, rendering it more difficult for them to acquire it; and,secondly, to their not having yet had time to put their landsin condition to maintain this greater stock properly, supposingthey were capable of acquiring it. The increase of stock,and the improvement of land, are two events which must gohand in hand, and of which the one can nowhere much out-run the other. Without some increase of stock, there can bescarce any improvement of land, but there can be no consi-derable increase of stock but in consequence of a considerableimprovement of land; because otherwise the land could notmaintain it. These natural obstructions to the establishmentof a better system, cannot be removed but by a long courseof frugality and industry; and half a century more, perhaps,must pass away before the old system, which is wearing outgradually, can be completely abolished through all the dif-ferent parts of the country. Of all the commercial advantages,however, which Scotland has derived from the union withEngland, this rise in the price of cattle is, perhaps, the great-est. It has not only raised the value of all highland estates,but it has, perhaps, been the principal cause of the improve-ment of the low country.

In all new colonies the great quantity of waste land, whichcan for many years be applied to no other purpose but thefeeding of cattle, soon renders them extremely abundant, andin every thing great cheapness is the necessary consequenceof great abundance. Though all the cattle of the Europeancolonies in America were originally carried from Europe ,they soon multiplied so much there, and became of so littlevalue, that even horses were allowed to run wild in the woodswithout any owner thinking it worth while to claim them.It must be a long time after the first establishment of suchcolonies, before it can become profitable to feed cattle uponthe produce of cultivated land. The same causes, therefore,the want of manure, and the disproportion between the stockemployed in cultivation, and the land which it is destined tocultivate, are likely to introduce there a system of husbandrynot unlike that which still continues to take place in so manyparts of Scotland . Mr. Kalm, the Swedish traveller, when