I. BOOK profit neceffary for preparing and bringing it to market, according to the rate at which they are commonly paid in corn land; it must not be fo much more as the prefent price of fugar. Our tobacco planters, accordingly, have fhewn the fame fear of the fuper-abundance of tobacco, which the proprietors of the old vineyards in France have of the fuper-abundance of wine. By act of affembly they have reftrained its cultivation to fix thousand plants, supposed to yield a thousand weight of tobacco, for every negro between fixteen and fixty years of age. Such a negro, over and above this quantity of tobacco, can manage, they reckon, four acres of Indian corn. To prevent the market from being overstocked too, they have fometimes, in plentiful years, we are told by Dr. Douglas, (I fufpect he has been ill informed) burnt a certain quantity of tobacco for every negro, in the fame manner as the Dutch are faid to do of fpices. If fuch violent methods are neceffary to keep up the prefent price of tobacco, the fuperior advantage of its culture over that of corn, if it ftill has any, will not probably be of long continuance. IT is in this manner that the rent of the cultivated land, of which the produce is human food, regulates the rent of the greater part of other cultivated land. No particular produce can long afford lefs; because the land would immediately be turned to another use: And if any particular produce commonly affords more, it is because the quantity of land which can be fitted for it is too small to fupply the effectual demand. IN Europe corn is the principal produce of land which ferves immediately for human food. Except in particular fituations, therefore, the rent of corn land regulates in Europe that of all other cultivated land. Britain need envy neither the vineyards of France nor the olive plantations of Italy. Except in particular * Douglas's Summary, vol. ii. p. 372, 373. fituations, XI. fituations, the value of thefe is regulated by that of corn, in which CHA P. the fertility of Britain is not much inferior to that of either of those two countries. IF in any country the common and favourite vegetable food of the people should be drawn from a plant of which the most common land, with the fame or nearly the fame culture, produced a much greater quantity than the most fertile does of corn, the rent of the landlord, or the furplus quantity of food which would remain to him, after paying the labour and replacing the stock of the farmer together with its ordinary profits, would neceffarily be much greater. Whatever was the rate at which labour was commonly maintained in that country, this greater furplus could always maintain a greater quantity of it, and confequently enable the landlord to purchase or command a greater quantity of it. The real value of his rent, his real power and authority, his command of the neceffaries and conveniencies of life with which the labour of other people could fupply him, would neceffarily be much greater. acre. A RICE field produces a much greater quantity of food than the most fertile corn field. Two crops in the year from thirty to fixty bushels each, are faid to be the ordinary produce of an Though its cultivation, therefore, requires more labour, a much greater surplus remains after maintaining all that labour. In those rice countries, therefore, where rice is the common and favourite vegetable food of the people, and where the cultivators are chiefly maintained with it, a greater fhare of this greater furplus should belong to the landlord than in corn countries. In Carolina, where the planters, as in other British colonies, are generally both farmers and landlords, and where rent confequently is confounded with profit, the cultivation of rice is found to be more profitable I. BOOK profitable than that of corn, though their fields produce only one crop in the year, and though, from the prevalence of the cuftoms of Europe, rice is not there the common and favourite vegetable food of the people. A GOOD rice field is a bog at all feafons, and at one feafon a bog covered with water. It is unfit either for corn, or pafture, of rice lands cannot regulate the rent of the other cultivated land which can never be turned to that produce. THE food produced by a field of potatoes is not inferior in quantity to that produced by a field of rice, and much fuperior to what is produced by a field of wheat. Twelve thousand weight of potatoes from an acre of land is not a greater produce than two thousand weight of wheat. The food or folid nourishment, indeed, which can be drawn from each of those two plants, is not altogether in proportion to their weight, on account of the watery nature of potatoes. Allowing, however, half the weight of this root to go to water, a very large allowance, fuch an acre of potatoes will ftill produce fix thousand weight of folid nourishment, three times the quantity produced by the acre of wheat. An acre of potatoes is cultivated with lefs expence than an acre of wheat; the fallow which generally precedes the fowing of wheat, more than compenfating the hoeing and other extraordinary culture which is always given to potatoes. Should this root ever become in any part of Europe, like rice in fome rice countries, the common and favourite vegetable food of the people, fo as to occupy the fame proportion of the lands in tillage which wheat and other forts of grain for human food do at present, the fame quantity of cultivated XI. vated land would maintain a much greater number of people, CHAP. and the labourers being generally fed with potatoes, a greater furplus would remain after replacing all the stock and maintaining all the labour employed in cultivation. A greater fhare of this furplus too would belong to the landlord. Population would increase, and rents would rife much beyond what they are at present. THE land which is fit for potatoes, is fit for almoft every other useful vegetable. If they occupied the fame proportion of cultivated land which corn does at prefent, they would regulate, in the fame manner, the rent of the greater part of other cultivated land. In fome parts of Lancashire it is pretended, I have been told, that bread of oatmeal is a heartier food for labouring people than wheaten bread, and I have frequently heard the fame doctrine held in Scotland. I am, however, fomewhat doubtful of the truth of it. The common people in Scotland, who are fed with oatmeal, are in general neither so strong, nor fo handsome as the fame rank of people in England, who are fed with wheaten bread. They neither work fo well, nor look fo well; and as there is not the fame difference between the people of fashion in the two countries, experience would feem to show, that the food of the common people in Scotland is not fo fuitable to the human conftitution as that of their neighbours of the fame rank in England. But it feems to be otherwife with potatoes. The chairmen, porters, and coalheavers in London, and thofe unfortunate women who live by prostitution, the strongest men and the most beautiful women perhaps in the British dominions, are said to be, the greater part of them, from the loweft rank of people in Ireland, who are generally fed with this root. No food can afford a more deVOL. I. cifive D d I. BOOK cifive proof of its nourishing quality, or of its being peculiarly suitable to the health of the human conftitution. It is difficult to preserve potatoes through the year, and impoffible to ftore them, like corn, for two or three years together. The fear of not being able to fell them before they rot, difcourages their cultivation, and is, perhaps, the chief obstacle to their ever becoming in any great country, like bread, the principal vegetable food of all the different ranks of the people. PART II. Of the Produce of Land which fometimes does, and fometimes does not, afford Rent. H UMAN food feems to be the only produce of land which always and neceffarily affords fome rent to the landlord. Other forts of produce fometimes may and fometimes may not, according to different circumstances. AFTER food, cloathing and lodging are the two great wants of mankind. LAND in its original rude state can afford the materials of cloathing and lodging to a much greater number of people than it can feed. In its improved flate it can fometimes feed a greater number of people than it can fupply with thofe materials; at least in the way in which they require them, and are willing to pay for them. In the one state, therefore, there is always a fuperabundance of thofe materials, which are frequently, upon that account, of little or no value. In the other there is often a scarcity, which neceffarily augments their value. In the one state a great part |