208 ADAM SMITH. 



what predicament, then, is the labourer who makes a hedge 

 round a field for its protection, or a ditch for draining it ? 

 This operation, because it is called farm-work, is admitted 

 by the Economists to be productive. But wherein does it 

 differ from the plough manufacture ? Both are alike sub- 

 servient and necessary to the operations of ploughing and 

 reaping ; both are alike performed by persons who do not 

 raise the produce that feeds them ; and both are alike per- 

 formed upon some materials produced from the earth by 

 other labour. If the plough were made in a bungling man- 

 ner by farm-servants in the out-houses of the farm, we ima- 

 gine the manufacture would of necessity fall under the head 

 of productive labour, as well as the work of hedging and 

 ditching. Again Capital employed by the corn-merchant 

 in collecting and circulating grain, is most unproductively 

 employed, according to the Economists. But the capital 

 employed in collecting seed in a barn, carrying it from thence 

 to the field, and returning the crop at harvest, is employed 

 in the most productive manner possible. Can it be main- 

 tained that there is any difference whatever between these 

 two cases, necessarily placed by the theory of the Econo- 

 mists at the opposite extremes of their scale ? If the corn- 

 merchant lived on the ground of the farmer, and if the 

 farmer, from this convenient circumstance, were enabled to 

 sell all his grain without having any barns or granaries, cer- 

 tain of supplying himself at his own door next seed-time, 

 the Economist would be forced to allow that the capital of 

 the corn-merchant, in so far as it assisted the farmer, was 

 productively employed. Wherein lies the difference ? And 

 these observations are applicable to every case of every 

 manufacture, and every species of commerce whatever. 

 They apply to those kinds of employment which are sub- 

 servient to the purposes of comfort and enjoyment, as well 

 as to those which administer to our necessary wants; for 

 we showed above, that there is no possibility of drawing 

 a line between the cases, consistently with principles ad- 

 mitted even by the Economists themselves. The founda- 

 tion of all these misapprehensions is evidently laid in a 

 neglect of the great principle of the division of labour. In 



