The cry of the people in cities and towns, though unfortunately (from a fear of their multitude and combination) the most regarded, ought, in fact, to be the least attended to, upon this subject:  for citizens are in a state of utter ignorance of the means by which they are to be fed, and they contribute little or nothing, except in an infinitely circuitous manner, to their own maintenance.  They are truly fruges consumere nati.  They are to be heard with great respect and attention upon matters within their province,—­that is, on trades and manufactures; but on anything that relates to agriculture they are to be listened to with the same reverence which we pay to the dogmas of other ignorant and presumptuous men.

If any one were to tell them that they were to give in an account of all the stock in their shops,—­that attempts would be made to limit their profits, or raise the price of the laboring manufacturers upon them, or recommend to government, out of a capital from the public revenues, to set up a shop of the same commodities, in order to rival them, and keep, them to reasonable dealing,—­they would very soon see the impudence, injustice, and oppression of such a course.  They would not be mistaken:  but they are of opinion that agriculture is to be subject to other laws, and to be governed by other principles.

A greater and more ruinous mistake cannot be fallen into than that the trades of agriculture and grazing can be conducted upon any other than the common principles of commerce:  namely, that the producer should be permitted, and even expected, to look to all possible profit which without fraud or violence he can make; to turn plenty or scarcity to the best advantage he can; to keep back or to bring forward his commodities at his pleasure; to account to no one for his stock or for his gain.  On any other terms he is the slave of the consumer:  and that he should be so is of no benefit to the consumer.  No slave was ever so beneficial to the master as a freeman that deals with him on an equal footing by convention, formed on the rules and principles of contending interests and compromised advantages.  The consumer, if he were suffered, would in the end always be the dupe of his own tyranny and injustice.  The landed gentleman is never to forget that the farmer is his representative.

It is a perilous thing to try experiments on the farmer.  The farmer’s capital (except in a few persons and in a very few places) is far more feeble than commonly is imagined.  The trade is a very poor trade; it is subject to great risks and losses.  The capital, such as it is, is turned but once in the year; in some branches it requires three years before the money is paid:  I believe never less than three in the turnip and grass-land course, which is the prevalent course on the more or less fertile sandy and gravelly loams,—­and these compose the soil in the south and southeast of England, the best adapted, and perhaps the only ones that are adapted, to the turnip husbandry.