ertility of
the land. It is the work of nature which remains, after
deducting or compensating every thing which can be
regarded as the work of man. It is seldom less than a
fourth, and frequently more than a third of the whole
produce. No equal quantity of productive labour employed
in manufactures, can ever occasion so great a
reproduction. _In them nature does nothing, man does all_;
and the reproduction must always be in proportion to the
strength of the agents that occasion it. The capital
employed in agriculture, therefore, not only puts into
motion a greater quantity of productive labour than any
equal capital employed in manufactures, but in proportion
too to the quantity of the productive labour which it
employs, it adds a much greater value to the annual
produce of the land and labour of the country, to the
_real_ wealth and revenue of its inhabitants. Of all the
ways in which a capital can be employed, it is by far the
most advantageous to the society."--Book II. chap. v. p.
15.

Does nature nothing for man in manufactures? Are the
powers of wind and water, which move our machinery, and
assist navigation, nothing? The pressure of the atmosphere
and the elasticity of steam, which enable us to work the
most stupendous engines--are they not the gifts of nature?
to say nothing of the effects of the matter of heat in
softening and melting metals, of the decomposition of the
atmosphere in the process of dyeing and fermentation.
There is not a manufacture which can be mentioned, in
which nature does not give her assistance to man, and give
it too, generously and gratuitously.

In remarking on the passage which I have copied from Adam
Smith, Mr. Buchanan observes, "I have endeavoured to shew,
in the observations on productive and unproductive
Footnote: labour, contained in the fourth volume, that
agriculture adds no more to the national stock than any
other sort of industry. In dwelling on the reproduction of
rent as so great an advantage to society, Dr. Smith does
not reflect that rent is the effect of high price, and
that what the landlord gains in this way, he gains at the
expense of the community at large. There is no absolute
gain to the society by the reproduction of rent; it is
only one class profiting at the expense of another class.
The notion of agriculture yielding a produce, and a rent
in consequence, because n