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6. EXPENSES AND PROFITS. 
Respecting the expense and profit of agricultural 
employment, it cannot be expected that any minute 
detail of real accounts should be gone into, as few, and 
perhaps no individuals would chuse that their domestic 
accounts should meet the public eye; this subject can 
therefore only be treated in a general way, and from 
the apparent circumstances of practical farmers. The 
produce of the land is of such universal and absolute 
necessity to the existence of mankind, that it is not 
reasonable it should yield to him who raises it more 
than a fair profit, and this must always be the case from 
the competition occasioned by these articles being in 
numberless hands; so that little more can in general 
be expected to be got by farming than the price of 
labour and interest of capital. If the price of landed 
produce has advanced of late years, rents^ taxes, and 
the price of labour have kept pace, and the general 
circumstances of farmers •will be found but little im¬ 
proved ; yet the situation of different farmers like that 
of other classes of men, will be various from different 
exertions and causes ; the small occupier, with a small 
capital and no other resource, will seldom rise to opu¬ 
lence ; some little advantage arises in this county from 
fruit, as the domestic beverage comes duty free, but in 
the articles of cyder and perry for sale, I believe much 
more is gained by the merchant than the planter ; and 
the same will hold good in respect to hops, which, in a 
plentiful year, are sold for little more than the amount 
of duty and labour; it is therefore by those alone whose 
opulence enables them to keep the produce of plentiful 
years for the demand of scarce ones, that any thing con¬ 
siderable is gained by these articles. 
CHAP. 
