CHAP. XX. INCREASED PRICES. 109 



dered all property which, like that of the produce 

 of the soil, could be serviceable to hostile bodies 

 extremely insecure. Italy and Germany were 

 divided into such a great number of separate 

 sovereignties perpetually at variance with each 

 other, that any property exposed in the fields 

 or the villages was constantly liable to military 

 seizure. 



In those countries the operative cultivators must 

 have been benefited by the advance of prices, such 

 at least of them as escaped the rude hands of the 

 military depredators; but their experience must 

 have warned them from investing it in agricultural 

 stock and implements, and they could have had 

 no occasion to expose themselves to such hazardous 

 experiments when the landowners were quite ready 

 to furnish stock, and thus incur all the risk, whilst 

 the cultivator was to be a sharer of the benefit. 

 Other causes may have contributed to give to 

 English agriculture that peculiarly beneficial di- 

 rection which it received at the period when the 

 influx of the precious metals had its greatest in- 

 fluence on prices. It is, however, grateful to our 

 feelings to trace the rise of a class in society which 

 is known in no other country, that of capitalists 

 cultivating the lands of proprietors, paying fixed 

 sums for the use of the lands, and exercising their 

 skill and industry for their own benefit in the first 

 instance ; for the benefit of the proprietor, if he be 

 a wise and good landlord ; and for the benefit of 



