THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

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or building on purpose for it, but will suffer the business tobe carried on amidst the smoke, lilth, and nastiness of hisown kitchen; as was the case of almost all the farmers' dairiesin Scotland thirty or forty years ago, and as is the case withmany of them still. The same causes which gradually raisethe price of butcher’s meat, the increase of the demand, and,in consequence of the improvement of the country, the dimi-nution of the quantity which can be fed at little or no ex-pense, raise, in the same manner, that of the produce of thedairy, of which the price naturally connects with that ofbutcher’s meat, or with the expense of feeding cattle. Theincrease of price pays for more labour, care, and cleanliness.The dairy becomes more worthy of the farmer’s attention,and the quality of its produce gradually improves. Theprice at last gets so high that it becomes worth while to em-ploy some of the most fertile and best cultivated lands in feed-ing cattle merely for the purpose of the dairy; and when ithas got to this height, it cannot well go higher. If it did,more land would soon be turned to this purpose. It seemsto have got to this height through the greater part of Eng-land, where much good land is commonly employed in thismanner. If you except the neighbourhood of a few consi-derable towns, it seems not yet to have got to this height any-where in Scotland , where common farmers seldom employmuch good land in raising food for cattle, merely for thepurpose of the dairy. The price of the produce, though ithas risen very considerably within these few years, is pro-bably still too low to admit of it. The inferiority of thequality, indeed, compared with that of the produce of Eng-lish dairies, is lully equal to that of the price. But this in-feriority of quality is, perhaps, rather the effect of this low-ness of price than the cause of it. Though the quality wasmuch better, the greater part of what is brought to marketcould not, I apprehend, in the present circumstances of thecountry, be disposed of at a much better price; and the pre-sent price, it is probable, would not pay the expense of theland and labour necessary for producing a much better qua-lity. Through the greater part of England, notwithstandingthe superiority of price, the dairy is not reckoned a more pro-fitable employment of land than the raising of corn, or thefattening of cattle, the two great objects of agriculture.Through the greater part of Scotland , therefore, it cannotyet be even so profitable.