utmost height to which it is capable of rising;
or to the price which pays the labour and expense
of cultivating the land which furnishes
them with food, as well as these are paid upon
the greater part of other cultivated land.
The business of the dairy, like the feeding
of hogs and poultry, is originally carried on
as a save-all. The cattle necessarily kept upon
the farm produce more milk than either
the rearing of their own young, or the consumption
of the farmer's family requires; and
they produce most at one particular season.
But of all the productions of land, milk is
perhaps the most perishable. In the warm
season, when it is most abundant, it will scarce
keep four-and-twenty hours. The farmer, by
making it into fresh butter, stores a small part
of it for a week; by making it into salt butter,
for a year; and by making it into cheese,
he stores a much greater part of it for several
years. Part of all these is reserved for
the use of his own family, the rest goes to
market, in order to find the best price which
is to be had, and which can scarce be so low
as to discourage him from sending thither
whatever is over and above the use of his own
family. If it is very low indeed, he will be
likely to manage his dairy in a very slovenly
and dirty manner, and will scarce, perhaps,
think it worth while to have a particular
room or building on purpose for it, but will
suffer the business to be carried on amidst
the smoke, filth, and nastiness of his own
kitchen, as was the case of almost all the farmers'
dairies in Scotland thirty or forty years
ago, and as is the case of many of them still.
The same causes which gradually raise the
price of butcher's meat, the increase of the
demand, and, in consequence of the improvement
of the country, the diminution of the
quantity which can be fed at little or no expense,
raise, in the same manner, that of the
produce of the dairy, of which the price naturally
connects with that of butcher's meat, or
with the expense of feeding cattle. The increase
of price pays for more labour, care,
and cleanliness. The dairy becomes more
worthy of the farmer's attention, and the quality
of its produce gradually improves. The
price at last gets so high, that it become worth
while to employ some of the most fertile and
best cultivated lands in feeding cattle merely
for the purpose of the dairy; and when it has
got to this height, it cannot well go higher.
If it did, more land would soon be turned to
this purpose. It seems to have got to this
height through the greater part of England,
where much good land is commonly employed
in this manner. If you except the neighbourhood
of a few considerable towns, it seems
not yet to have got to this height anywhere in
Scotland, where common farmers seldom employ
much good land in raising food for cattle,
merely for the purpose of the dairy. The
price of the produce, though it has risen very
considerably within these few years, is probably
still too low to admit of it. The inferiority
of the quality, indeed, compared with that
of the produce of English dairies, is fully
equal to that of the price. But this inferiority
of quality is, perhaps, rather the effect of
this lowness of price, than the cause of it.
Though the quality was much better, the
greater part of what is brought to market
could not, I apprehend, in the present circumstances
of the country, be disposed of at a
much better price; and the present price, it
is probable, would not pay the expense of the
land and labour necessary for producing a
much better quality. Through the greater
part of England, notwithstanding the superiority
of price, the dairy is not reckoned a more
profitable employment of land than the raising
of corn, or the fattening of cattle, the two great
objects of agriculture. Through the greater
part of Scotland, therefore, it cannot yet be
even so profitable.
The lands of no country, it is evident, can
ever be completely cultivated and improved,
till once the price of every produce, which
human industry in obliged to raise upon them,
has got so high as to pay for the expense of
complete improvement and cultivation. In
order to do this, the price of each particular
produce must be sufficient, first, to pay the
rent of good corn land, as it is that which regulates
the rent of the greater part of other
cultivated land; and, secondly, to pay the labour
and expense of the farmer, as well as
they are commonly paid upon good corn land;
or, in other words, to replace with the ordinary
profits the stock which he employs about
it. This rise in the price of each particular
produce, must evidently be previous to the
improvement and cultivation of the land which
is destined for raising it. Gain is the end of
all improvement; and nothing could deserve
that name, of which loss was to be the necessary
consequence. But loss must be the necessary
consequence of improving land for the
sake of a produce of which the price could
never bring back the expense. If the complete
improvement and cultivation of the country
be, as it most certainly is, the greatest of
all public advantages, this rise in the price of
all those different sorts of rude produce, instead
of being considered as a public calamity,
ought to be regarded as the necessary forerunner
and attendant of the greatest of all
public advantages.
This rise, too, in the nominal or money
price of all these different sorts of rude produce,
has been the effect, not of any degradation
in the value of silver, but of a rise in
their real price. They have become worth,
not only a greater quantity of silver, but a
greater quantity of labour and subsistence
than before. As it costs a greater quantity
of labour and subsistence to bring them to
market, so, when they are brought thither
they represent, or are equivalent to a greater