CHAP. xx. INCREASED PRICES. 107 



life. Supposing produce to have risen as we have 

 shown it did in the period, at the rate of a hun- 

 dred and fifty per cent., the value of the new life 

 to be placed in the farm would have been much 

 more than saved by the advance of prices, whilst 

 the rent had remained unchanged. In this way 

 tenants of the description here noticed would with 

 prudence and care have saved more in the course 

 of a century, during which prices had gradually 

 advanced to five times their former rate, than 

 would be sufficient to purchase their own farms. 



By this view of the subject we see that the cul- 

 tivators in England became capitalists, and if they 

 chose rather to rent than to buy land, were en- 

 abled to provide from their capitals the necessary 

 stock of cattle and implements, and to furnish the 

 sums required to pay their labourers till the fruits 

 of their industry should arrive at maturity, and 

 become applicable to that and the other purposes 

 of cultivation. 



It is difficult to account for the different course 

 which rural affairs assumed in England from what 

 at the same period presents itself to our view on 

 looking at the continental kingdoms, where the 

 operative cultivators became metayer occupants, 

 and have entailed on their successors all the evils 

 which seem inseparably connected with that sys- 

 tem, and which are the greater evil from the diffi- 

 culties which oppose its amelioration. 



Much of this difference may be attributed to 

 our insular position, and to the security to pro- 



