finer fruits cannot be brought to perfection
but by the assistance of a wall. Their price,
therefore, in such countries, must be sufficient
to pay the expense of building and maintaining
what they cannot be had without. The
fruit-wall frequently surrounds the kitchen
garden, which thus enjoys the benefit of an inclosure
which its own produce could seldom
pay for.
That the vineyard, when properly planted
and brought to perfection, was the most valuable
part of the farm, seems to have been an
undoubted maxim in the ancient agriculture,
as it is in the modern, through all the wine
countries. But whether it was advantageous
to plant a new vineyard, was a matter of dispute
among the ancient Italian husbandmen,
as we learn from Columella. He decides,
like a true lover of all curious cultivation, in
favour of the vineyard; and endeavours to
shew, by a comparison of the profit and expense,
that it was a most advantageous improvement.
Such comparisons, however, between
the profit and expense of new projects
are commonly very fallacious; and in nothing
more so than in agriculture. Had the gain
actually made by such plantations been commonly
as great as he imagined it might have
been, there could have been no dispute about
it. The same point is frequently at this day
a matter of controversy in the wine countries.
Their writers on agriculture, indeed, the lovers
and promoters of high cultivation, seem
generally disposed to decide with Columella
in favour of the vineyard. In France, the
anxiety of the proprietors of the old vineyards
to prevent the planting of any new ones, seems
to favour their opinion, and to indicate a consciousness
in those who must have the experience,
that this species of cultivation is at present
in that country more profitable than any
other. It seems, at the same time, however,
to indicate another opinion, that this superior
profit can last no longer than the laws which
at present restrain the free cultivation of the
vine. In 1731, they obtained an order of
council, prohibiting both the planting of new
vineyards, and the renewal of these old ones,
of which the cultivation had been interrupted
for two years, without a particular permission
from the king, to be granted only in consequence
of an information from the intendant
of the province, certifying that he had examined
the land, and that it was incapable of
any other culture. The pretence of this order
was the scarcity of corn and pasture, and
the superabundance of wine. But had this
superabundance been real, it would, without
any order of council, have effectually prevented
the plantation of new vineyards, by reducing
the profits of this species of cultivation
below their natural proportion to those of corn
and pasture. With regard to the supposed
scarcity of corn occasioned by the multiplication
of vineyards, corn is nowhere in France
more carefully cultivated than in the wine
provinces, where the land is fit for producing
it: as in Burgundy, Guienne, and the Upper
Languedoc. The numerous hands employed
in the one species of cultivation necessarily
encourage the other, by affording a ready market
for its produce. To diminish the number
of those who are capable of paying it, is surely
a most unpromising expedient for encouraging
the cultivation of corn. It is like the
policy which would promote agriculture, by
discouraging manufactures.
The rent and profit of those productions,
therefore, which require either a greater original
expense of improvement in order to fit the
land for them, or a greater annual expense of
cultivation, though often much superior to
those of corn and pasture, yet when they do
no more than compensate such extraordinary
expense, are in reality regulated by the rent
and profit of those common crops.
It sometimes happens, indeed, that the quantity
of land which can be fitted for some particular
produce, is too small to supply the effectual
demand. The whole produce can be
disposed of to those who are willing to give
somewhat more than what is sufficient to pay
the whole rent, wages, and profit, necessary
for raising and bringing it to market, according
to their natural rates, or according to the
rates at which they are paid in the greater
part of other cultivated land. The surplus
part of the price which remains after defraying
the whole expense of improvement and
cultivation, may commonly, in this case, and
in this case only, bear no regular proportion
to the like surplus in corn or pasture, but may
exceed it in almost any degree; and the greater
part of this excess naturally goes to the
rent of the landlord.
The usual and natural proportion, for example,
between the rent and profit of wine, and
those of corn and pasture, must be understood
to take place only with regard to those vineyards
which produce nothing but good common
wine, such as can be raised almost anywhere,
upon any light, gravelly, or sandy soil, and
which has nothing to recommend it but its
strength and wholesomeness. It is with such
vineyards only, that the common land of the
country can be brought into competition; for
with those of a peculiar quality it is evident
that it cannot.
The vine is more affected by the difference
of soils than any other fruit-tree. From some
it derives a flavour which no culture or management
can equal, it is supposed, upon any
other. This flavour, real or imaginary, is
sometimes peculiar to the produce of a few
vineyards; sometimes it extends through
the greater part of a small district, and sometimes
through a considerable part of a large province.
The whole quantity of such wines
that is brought to market falls short of the effectual
demand, or the demand of those who