Great Britain increase as they have done for
some time past, its price may very probably
rise still higher than it is at present.
Between that period in the progress of improvement,
which brings to its height the price
of so necessary an article as cattle, and that
which brings to it the price of such a superfluity
as venison, there is a very long interval,
in the course of which many other sorts of
rude produce gradually arrive at their highest
price, some sooner and some later, according
to different circumstances.
Thus, in every farm, the offals of the barn
and stable will maintain a certain number of
poultry. These, as they are fed with what
would otherwise be lost, are a mere save-all;
and as they cost the farmer scarce any thing,
so he can afford to sell them for very little.
Almost all that he gets is pure gain, and their
price can scarce be so low as to discourage
him from feeding this number. But in countries
ill cultivated, and therefore but thinly
inhabited, the poultry, which are thus raised
without expense, are often fully sufficient to
supply the whole demand. In this state of
things, therefore, they are often as cheap as
butcher's meat, or any other sort of animal
food. But the whole quantity of poultry
which the farm in this manner produces without
expense, must always be much smaller
than the whole quantity of butcher's meat
which is reared upon it; and in times of
wealth and luxury, what is rare, with only
nearly equal merit, is always preferred to
what is common. As wealth and luxury increase,
therefore, in consequence of improvement
and cultivation, the price of poultry gradually
rises above that of butcher's meat, till
at last it gets so high, that it becomes profitable
to cultivate land for the sake of feeding
them. When it has got to this height, it cannot
well go higher. If it did, more land
would soon be turned to this purpose. In
several provinces of France, the feeding of
poultry is considered as a very important article
in rural economy, and sufficiently profitable
to encourage the farmer to raise a considerable
quantity of Indian corn and buckwheat
for this purpose. A middling farmer
will there sometimes have four hundred fowls
in his yard. The feeding of poultry seems
scarce yet to be generally considered as a matter
of so much importance in England. They
are certainly, however, dearer in England than
in France, as England receives considerable
supplies from France. In the progress of improvements,
the period at which every particular
sort of animal food in dearest, must naturally
be that which immediately precedes
the general practice of cultivating land for the
sake of raising it. For some time before this
practice becomes general, the scarcity must
necessarily raise the price. After it has become
general, new methods of feeding are
commonly fallen upon, which enable the farmer
to raise upon the same quantity of ground
a much greater quantity of that particular sort
of animal food. The plenty not only obliges
him to sell cheaper, but, in consequence of
these improvements, he can afford to sell
cheaper; for if he could not afford it, the
plenty would not be of long continuance. It
has been probably in this manner that the introduction
of clover, turnips, carrots, cabbages,
&c. has contributed to sink the common
price of butcher's meat in the London market,
somewhat below what it was about the beginning
of the last century.
The hog, that finds his food among ordure,
and greedily devours many things rejected by
every other useful animal, is, like poultry,
originally kept as a save-all. As long as the
number of such animals, which can thus be
reared at little or no expense, is fully sufficient
to supply the demand, this sort of butcher's
meat comes to market at a much lower
price than any other. But when the demand
rises beyond what this quantity can supply,
when it becomes necessary to raise food on
purpose for feeding and fattening hogs, in the
same manner as for feeding and fattening
other cattle, the price necessarily rises, and
becomes proportionably either higher or lower
than that of other butcher's meat, according
as the nature of the country, and the state of
its agriculture, happen to render the feeding
of hogs more or less expensive than that of
other cattle. In France, according to Mr
Buffon, the price of pork is nearly equal to
that of beef. In most parts of Great Britain
it is at present somewhat higher.
The great rise in the price both of hogs and
poultry, has, in Great Britain, been frequently
imputed to the diminution of the number
of cottagers and other small occupiers of land;
an event which has in every part of Europe
been the immediate forerunner of improvement
and better cultivation, but which at the
same time may have contributed to raise the
price of those articles, both somewhat sooner
and somewhat faster than it would otherwise
have risen. As the poorest family can often
maintain a cat or a dog without any expense,
so the poorest occupiers of land can commonly
maintain a few poultry, or a sow and a few
pigs, at very little. The little offals of their
own table, their whey, skimmed milk, and
butter milk, supply those animals with a part
of their food, and they find the rest in the
neighbouring fields, without doing any sensible
damage to any body. By diminishing
the number of those small occupiers, therefore,
the quantity of this sort of provisions,
which is thus produced at little or no expense,
must certainly have been a good deal diminished,
and their price must consequently
have been raised both sooner and faster than
it would otherwise have risen. Sooner or
later, however, in the progress of improvement,
it must at any rate have risen to the