planters, as in other Britifh colonies, are gene- Chap. rally both farmers and landlords, and where rent ponfequently is confounded with profit, the cultivation of rice is found to be more profitable than that of corn, though their fields produce only one crop in the year, and though, from the prevalence of the customs 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, or vineyard, or, indeed, for any other vegetable produce that is veryufeful to men: And the lands which are fit for thofe purpofes, are not fit for rice. Even in the rice countries, therefore, the rent 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 thoufand weight of potatoes from an acre of land is not a greater produce than two thoufand weight of wheat. The food or folid nourifhment, indeed, which can be drawn from each of thofe 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 Book times the quantity produced by the acre of c..., 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 prefent, the fame quantity of cultivated land would maintain a much greater number of people, and the labourers being generally fed with potatoes, a greater furplus would remain after replacing all the ftock and maintaining all the labour employed in cultivation. A greater fhare of this furplus too would belong to the landlord. Population would increafe, and rents would rife much beyond what they are at prefent. The land which is fit for potatoes, is fit for almost every other ufeful 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 Lancafhire 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 mon people in Scotland, who are fed with oat- c II A P. meal, are in general neither so strong nor so *'' ImiuHbme as the fame rank of people in England who are fed with wheaten bread. They neither work so well, nor look so well; and as there is not the same deference between the people of fashion in the two countries, experience would seem to shew, that the food of the common people in Scotland is not Ib suitable to the human constitution as that of their neighbours of the same rank in England. But it seems to be otherwise with potatoes. The chairmen, porters, and coal-heavers in London, and those unfortunate women who live \\y prostitution, the strongest men and the mod beautiful women perhaps in the British Dominions, are said to be, the greater part of them, from the lowest rank of people in Ireland, who are generally fed with this root. No food can afford a more decisive proof of its nourishing quality, or of its being peculiarly suitable to the health of the human constitution. It is dissicult to preserve potatoes through the year, and impossible to store them like corn, for two or three years together. The fear of not being able to fell them before they rot, discourages 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 PART II. Os the Produce of Land which sometimes does, and sometimes does not, afford Rent. HUMAN food seems to be the only produce of land which always and necessarily affords some rent to the landlord. Other forts of produce sometimes may and sometimes may not, according to different circumstances. Aster 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 state it can sometimes feed a greater number of people than it can supply with those 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 superabundance of these materials, which are frequently, upon that account, of little or no value. In the other there is often a scarcity, which necessarily augments their value. In the one state a great part of them is thrown away as useless, and the price of what is used is considered as equal only to the labour and expence of fitting it for use, and can, therefore, afford no rent to the landlord. In the other they are all made use of, and there is frequently a demand for more than can be had. Somebody is always willing to give more for every part of them than what what is sufficient to pay the expence of bringing Chap. them to market. Their price, therefore, can y_M_J^ always afford some rent to the landlord. The skins of the larger animals were the original materials of cloathing. Among nations of hunters and shepherds, therefore, whose food consists chiefly in the flesh of those animals, every man, by providing himself with food, provides himself with the materials of more cloathing than he can wear. _ If there was no foreign commerce, the greater part of them would be thrown away as things of no value. This was probably the case among the hunting nations of North America, before their country was discovered by the Europeans, with whom they now exchange their surplus peltry, for blankets, sire-arms, and brandy, which gives it some value. In the present commercial state of the known world, the most barbarous nations, I believe, among whom land property is established, have some foreign commerce of this kind, and find among their wealthier neighbours such a demand for all the materials of clothing, which their land produces, and which can neither be wrought up nor consumed at home, as raises their price above what it costs to fend them to those m wealthier neighbours. It affords, therefore, some rent to the landlord. When the. greater part of the highland cattle were consumed on their own hills, the exportation of their hides, made the most considerable article of the commerce of that country, and what they were exchanged for afforded some addition to the rent |