158 Of Systems of Agriculture Bk. iii. 



. ers and farmers, they must tend to diminish that 

 portion of the value of the whole produce which 

 is consumed necessarily on the land, and leave a 

 larger remainder. From this larger remainder 

 may be drawn a higher rate of profits, notwith- 

 standing the increase of capital and extension of 

 cultivation. 



Fourthly ; the prosperity of foreign commerce. 

 If from a prosperous foreign commerce our labour 

 and domestic commodities rise considerably in 

 price, while foreign commodities are advanced 

 comparatively very little, an event which is very 

 common, it is evident that the farmer or labourer 

 will be able to obtain the tea, sugar, cottons, 

 linens, leather, tallow, timber, &c. which he 

 stands in need of, for a smaller quantity of corn 

 or labour than before ; and this increased power 

 of purchasing foreign commodities will have pre- 

 cisely the same effect, in allowing the means of 

 an extended cultivation without a fall of profits, 

 as the improvements in manufactures just referred 

 to. 



Fifthly ; a temporary increase in the relative 

 price of raw produce from increased demand. 

 Allowing, what is certainly not true, that a rise in 

 the price of raw produce, will, after a certain 

 number of years, occasion a proportionate rise in 

 labour* and other commodities; yet, during the 



* A rise, which is occasioned exclusively by the increased quan- 

 tity of labour which may be required in the progress of society to 

 raise a given quantity of corn on the last land taken into cultiva- 

 tion, must, of course, be peculiar to raw produce, and will not be 



