226 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

Mr. Hume observes, that in the Saxon times, the fleece wasestimated at two-fifths of the value of the whole sheep, andthat this was much above the proportion of its present esti-mation. In some provinces of Spain , I have been assured,the sheep is frequently killed merely for the sake of thefleece and the tallow. The carcase is often left to rot uponthe ground, or to be devoured by beasts and birds of prey.If this sometimes happens even in Spain , it happens almostconstantly in Chili, at Buenos-Ayres, and in many otherparts of Spanish America, where the horned cattle arealmost constantly killed merely for the sake of the hide andthe tallow. This too used to happen almost constantly inHispaniola , while it was infested by the Buccaneers, andbefore the settlement, improvement, and populousness of theFrench plantations (which now extend round the coast ofalmost the whole western half of the island) had given somevalue to the cattle of the Spaniards, who still continue topossess, not only the eastern part of the coast, but the wholeinland and mountainous part of the country.

Though in the progress of improvement and population,the price of the whole beast necessarily rises, yet the priceof the carcase is likely to be much more affected by this risethan that of the wool and the hide. The market for thecarcase, being in the rude state of society confined alwaysto the country which produces it, must necessarily be ex-tended in proportion to the improvement and population ofthat country. But the market for the wool and the hideseven of a barbarous country, often extending to the wholecommercial world, it can very seldom be enlarged in thesame proportion. The state of the whole commercial worldcan seldom be much affected by the improvement of anyparticular country; and the market for such commoditiesmay remain the same, or very nearly the same, after suchimprovements, as before. It should, however, in the naturalcourse of things, rather upon the whole be somewhat ex-tended in consequence of them. If the manufactures, espe-cially, of which those commodities are the materials, shouldever come to flourish in the country, the market, though itmight not be much enlarged, would at least be broughtmuch nearer to the place of growth than before; and theprice of those materials might at least be increased by whathad usually been the expense of transporting them to distantcountries. Though it might not rise therefore in the same