quantity.
Third Sort.—The third and last sort of rude
produce, of which the price naturally rises in
the progress of improvement, is that in which
the efficacy of human industry, in augmenting
the quantity, is either limited or uncertain.
Though the real price of this sort of
rude produce, therefore, naturally tends to
rise in the progress of improvement, yet, according
as different accidents happen to render
the efforts of human industry more or less
successful in augmenting the quantity, it may
happen sometimes even to fall, sometimes to
continue the same, in very different periods of
improvement, and sometimes to rise more or
less in the same period.
There are some sorts of rude produce which
nature has rendered a kind of appendages to
other sorts; so that the quantity of the one
which any country can afford, is necessarily
limited by that of the other. The quantity
of wool or of raw hides, for example, which
any country can afford, is necessarily limited
by the number of great and small cattle that
are kept in it. The state of its improvement,
and the nature of its agriculture, again necessarily
determine this number.
The same causes which, in the progress of
improvement, gradually raise the price of
butcher's meat, should have the same effect,
it may be thought, upon the prices of wool
and raw hides, and raise them, too, nearly in
the same proportion. It probably would be
so, if, in the rude beginnings of improvement,
the market for the latter commodities was
confined within as narrow bounds as that for
the former. But the extent of their respective
markets is commonly extremely different.
The market for butcher's meat is almost
everywhere confined to the country which
produces it. Ireland, and some part of British
America, indeed, carry on a considerable
trade in salt provisions; but they are, I believe,
the only countries in the commercial
world which do so, or which export to other
countries any considerable part of their butcher's
meat.
The market for wool and raw hides, on the
contrary, is, in the rude beginnings of improvement,
very seldom confined to the country
which produces them. They can easily
be transported to distant countries; wool without
any preparation, and raw hides with very
little; and as they are the materials of many
manufactures, the industry of other countries
may occasion a demand for them, though that
of the country which produces them might
not occasion any.
In countries ill cultivated, and therefore
but thinly inhabited, the price of the wool and
the hide bears always a much greater proportion
to that of the whole beast, than in countries
where, improvement and population being
further advanced, there is more demand
for butcher's meat. Mr Hume observes, that
in the Saxon times, the fleece was estimated
at two-fifths of the value of the whole sheep,
and that this was much above the proportion
of its present estimation. In some provinces
of Spain, I have been assured, the sheep is
frequently killed merely for the sake of the
fleece and the tallow. The carcase is often
left to rot upon the ground, or to be devoured
by beasts and birds of prey. If this sometimes
happens even in Spain, it happens almost
constantly in Chili, at Buenos Ayres,
and in many other parts of Spanish America,
where the horned cattle are almost constantly
killed merely for the sake of the hide and the
tallow. This, too, used to happen almost constantly
in Hispaniola, while it was infested by
the buccaneers, and before the settlement, improvement,
and populousness of the French
plantations (which now extend round the coast
of almost the whole western half of the island)
had given some value to the cattle of the Spaniards,
who still continue to possess, not only
the eastern part of the coast, but the whole
inland mountainous part of the country.
Though, in the progress of improvement
and population, the price of the whole beast
necessarily rises, yet the price of the carcase
is likely to be much more affected by this rise
than that of the wool and the hide. The market
for the carcase being in the rude state of
society confined always to the country which
produces it, must necessarily be extended in
proportion to the improvement and population
of that country. But the market for the
wool and the hides, even of a barbarous country,
often extending to the whole commercial
world, it can very seldom be enlarged in the
same proportion. The state of the whole commercial
world can seldom be much affected
by the improvement of any particular country;
and the market for such commodities
may remain the same, or very nearly the same,
after such improvements, as before. It should,
however, in the natural course of things, rather,
upon the whole, be somewhat extended
in consequence of them. If the manufactures,
especially, of which those commodities
are the materials, should ever come to flourish
in the country, the market, though it might
not be much enlarged, would at least be
brought much nearer to the place of growth
than before; and the price of those materials
might at least be increased by what had usually
been the expense of transporting them to
distant countries. Though it might not rise,
therefore, in the same proportion as that of
butcher's meat, it ought naturally to rise somewhat,
and it ought certainly not to fall.
In England, however, notwithstanding the
flourishing state of its woollen manufacture,
the price of English wool has fallen very considerably
since the time of Edward III. There
are many authentic records which demonstrate