An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of

137

Adam Smith

much greater. Whatever was the rate at which labour was com-

monly maintained in that country, this greater surplus could al-

ways maintain a greater quantity of it, and, consequently, enable

the landlord to purchase or command a greater quantity of it. The

real value of his rent, his real power and authority, his command

of the necessaries and conveniencies of life with which the labour

of other people could supply him, would necessarily be much

greater.

A rice field produces a much greater quantity of food than the

most fertile corn field. Two crops in the year, from thirty to sixty

bushels each, are said to be the ordinary produce of an acre. Though

its cultivation, therefore, requires more labour, a much greater sur-

plus remains after maintaining all that labour. In those rice coun-

tries, therefore, where rice is the common and favourite vegetable

food of the people, and where the cultivators are chiefly maintained

with it, a greater share of this greater surplus should belong to the

landlord than in corn countries. In Carolina, where the planters, as

in other British colonies, are generally both farmers and landlords,

and where rent, consequently, is confounded with profit, the culti-

vation of rice is found to be more profitable than that of corn, though

their fields produce only one crop in the year, and though, from the

prevalence of the customs of Europe, rice is not there the common

and favourite vegetable food of the people.

A good rice field is a bog at all seasons, and at one season a bog

covered with water. It is unfit either for corn, or pasture, or vine-

yard, or, indeed, for any other vegetable produce that is very use-

ful to men; and the lands which are fit for those purposes are not

fit for rice. Even in the rice countries, therefore, the rent of rice

lands cannot regulate the rent of the other cuitivated land which

can never be turned to that produce.

The food produced by a field of potatoes is not inferior in quan-

tity to that produced by a field of rice, and much superior to what

is produced by a field of wheat. Twelve thousand weight of pota-

toes from an acre of land is not a greater produce than two thou-

sand weight of wheat. The food or solid nourishment, indeed,

which can be drawn from each of those two plants, is not alto-

gether in proportion to their weight, on account of the watery

nature of potatoes. Allowing, however, half the weight of this root

to go to water, a very large allowance, such an acre of potatoes will

still produce six thousand weight of solid nourishment, three times

the quantity produced by the acre of wheat. An acre of potatoes is

cultivated with less expense than an acre of wheat; the fallow, which

generally precedes the sowing of wheat, more than compensating

the hoeing and other extraordinary culture which is always given

to potatoes. Should this root ever become in any part of Europe,

like rice in some rice countries, the common and favourite veg-

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138

The Wealth of Nations

etable food of the people, so as to occupy the same proportion of

the lands in tillage, which wheat and other sorts of grain for hu-

man food do at present, the same quantity of cultivated land would

maintain a much greater number of people; and the labourers

being generally fed with potatoes, a greater surplus would remain

after replacing all the stock, and maintaining all the labour em-

ployed in cultivation. A greater share of this surplus, too, would

belong to the landlord. Population would increase, and rents would

rise much beyond what they are at present.

The land which is fit for potatoes, is fit for almost every other

useful vegetable. If they occupied the same proportion of culti-

vated land which corn does at present, they would regulate, in the

same manner, the rent of the greater part of other cultivated land.

In some parts of Lancashire, it is pretended, I have been told,

that bread of oatmeal is a heartier food for labouring people than

wheaten bread, and I have frequently heard the same doctrine

held in Scotland. I am, however, somewhat doubtful of the truth

of it. The common people in Scotland, who are fed with oatmeal,

are in general neither so strong nor so handsome as the same rank

of people in England, who are fed with wheaten bread. They nei-

ther work so well, nor look so well; and as there is not the same

difference between the people of fashion in the two countries,

experience would seem to shew, that the food of the common

people in Scotland is not so suitable to the human constitution as

that of their neighbours of the same rank in England. But it seems

to be otherwise with potatoes. The chairmen, porters, and coal-

heavers in London, and those unfortunate women who live by

prostitution, the strongest men and the most beautiful women

perhaps in the British dominions, are said to be, the greater part

of them, from the lowest rank of people in Ireland, who are gener-

ally fed with this root. No food can afford a more decisive proof of

its nourishing quality, or of its being peculiarly suitable to the

health of the human constitution.

It is difficult to preserve potatoes through the year, and impos-

sible to store them like corn, for two or three years together. The

fear of not being able to sell them before they rot, discourages

their cultivation, and is, perhaps, the chief obstacle to their ever

becoming in any great country, like bread, the principal vegetable

food of all the different ranks of the people.

P

P

P

P

PAR

AR

AR

AR

ART  II.  

T  II.  

T  II.  

T  II.  

T  II.  —  Of the Produce of Land, which sometimes does,

and sometimes does not, afford Rent.

Human food seems to be the only produce of land, which al-

ways and necessarily affords some rent to the landlord. Other sorts

of produce sometimes may, and sometimes may not, according to

different circumstances.

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