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'I'llE NATURE AND CAUSES OE

The lands of no country, it is evident, can ever be com-pletely cultivated and improved, till once the price of everyproduce, -which human industry is obliged to raise uponthem, has got so high as to pay for the expense of completeimprovement and cultivation. In order to do this, the priceof each particular produce must be sufficient, first, to pay therent of good corn-land, as it is that which regulates the rentof the greater part of other cultivated land; and secondly, topay the labour and expense of the farmer, as well as they arecommonly paid upon good corn-land; or, in other words, toreplace with the ordinary profits the stock which he employsabout it. This rise in the price of each particular produce,must evidently be previous to the improvement and cultiva-tion of the land which is destined for raising it. Gain is theend of all improvement, and nothing could deserve thatname of which loss was to be the necessary consequence.But loss must be the necessary consequence of improvingland for the sake of a produce of which the price could neverbring back the expense. If the complete improvement andcultivation of the country be, as it most certainly is, thegreatest of all public advantages, this rise in the price of allthose different sorts of rude produce, instead of being con-sidered as a public calamity, ought to be regarded as the ne-cessary forerunner and attendant of the greatest of all publicadvantages.

This rise too in the nominal or money-price of all thosedifferent sorts of rude produce has been the effect, not of anydegradation in the value of silver, but of a rise in their realprice. They have become worth, not only a greater quantityof silver, but a greater quantity of labour and subsistencethan before. As it costs a greater quantity of labour andsubsistence to bring them to market, so when they arebrought thither, they represent or are equivalent to a greaterquantity.

Third Sort.

The third and last sort of rude produce, of which theprice naturally rises in the progress of improvement, is thatin which the efficacy of human industry, in augmenting thequantity, is either limited or uncertain. Though the realprice of this sort of rude produce, therefore, naturally tendsto rise in the progress of improvement, yet, according asdifferent accidents happen to render the efforts of human