صفحة 8 من 2651

The occasions for those different sorts of labour returning with

the different seasons of the year, it is impossible that one man

should be constantly employed in any one of them. This

impossibility of making so complete and entire a separation of

all the different branches of labour employed in agriculture, is

perhaps the reason why the improvement of the productive powers

of labour, in this art, does not always keep pace with their

improvement in manufactures. The most opulent nations, indeed,

generally excel all their neighbours in agriculture as well as in

manufactures; but they are commonly more distinguished by their

superiority in the latter than in the former. Their lands are in

general better cultivated, and having more labour and expense

bestowed upon them, produce more in proportion to the extent and

natural fertility of the ground. But this superiority of produce

is seldom much more than in proportion to the superiority of

labour and expense.