THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

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sufficiently profitable to encourage the farmer to raise a con-siderable quantity of Indian corn and buck-wheat for thispurpose. A middling farmer will there sometimes have fourhundred fowls in his yard. The feeding of poultry seemsscarce yet to be generally considered as a matter of so muchimportance in England. They are certainly, however, dearerin England than in France , as England receives considerablesupplies from France . In the progress of improvement, theperiod at which every particular sort of animal food is dearest,must naturally be that which immediately precedes the ge-neral practice of cultivating land for the sake of raising it.For some time before this practice becomes general, thescarcity must necessarily raise the price. After it has be-come general, new methods of feeding are commonly fallenupon, which enable the farmer to raise upon the same quan-tity of ground a much greater quantity of that particular sortof animal food. The plenty not only obliges him to sellcheaper, but in consequence of these improvements he canafford to sell cheaper; for if he could not afford it, the plentywould not be of long continuance. It has been probably inthis manner that the introduction of clover, turnips, carrots,cabbages, &c. has contributed to sink the common price o|'butcher’s meat in the London market somewhat below whatit was about the beginning of the last century.

The hog, that finds his food among ordure, and greedilydevours many things rejected by every other useful animal,is, like poultry, originally kept as a save-all. As long as thenumber of such animals, which can thus be reared at littleor no expense, is fully sufficient to supply the demand, thissort ot butcher’s meat comes to market at a much lower pricethan any other. But when the demand rises beyond whatthis quantity can supply, when it becomes necessary to raisefood on purpose for feeding and fattening hogs, in the samemanner as for feeding and fattening other cattle, the pricenecessarily rises, and becomes proportionably either higheror lower than that of other butcher’s meat, according as thenature of the country, and the state of its agriculture, happento render the feeding of hogs more or less expensive thanthat of other cattle. In France , according to Mr. Buffon, theprice of pork is nearly equal to that of beef. In most partsof Great Britain it is at present somewhat higher.

The great rise in the price both of hogs and poultry hasin Great Britain been frequently imputed to the diminution