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finite standard, or determine when either is 

 excessive. When matters are left free each 

 will accurately adapt itself to .the actual a- 

 mount of supplies. Corn will never be cheap 

 but when it ought to be cheap, nor cheaper 

 than it ought to be : It will never be dear 

 unless when it ought to be dear, nor dearer 

 than it ought to be. The cultivator's com- 

 plaints of low prices on the one hand, or, as it 

 is usually termed, the want of adequate returns 

 to the grower, are just as unreasonable as the 

 public complaints of high prices on the other. 

 The return in the market, when matters are left 

 free, must be the adequate and proper return, in 

 proportion to the amount of produce. If this 

 last be too large, the farmer has overtraded, by 

 advancing cultivation too rapidly, and must di- 

 minish it. This is the only sense in which I use 

 the word 0yer-cheapness, when arising from na- 

 tural causes, and the only remedy I would pro- 

 pose, however low prices might fall. 



There are two modes in which the farmer's 

 profits may be lowered, and abundance created 

 by forced expedients, which, in a course of 

 average seasons, have nearly the same effect ; 

 namely, the stoppage of his market, and the 

 increase of produce ; the one professing to at- 

 tain its end by restraint, the other by encou- 

 ragement. 



