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But it must always be late in the progress of improvement before

tillage can be so far extended as to raise the price of cattle to

this height; and, till it has got to this height, if the country

is advancing at all, their price must be continually rising.

There are, perhaps, some parts of Europe in which the price of

cattle has not yet got to this height. It had not got to this

height in any part of Scotland before the Union. Had the Scotch

cattle been always confined to the market of Scotland, in a

country in which the quantity of land, which can be applied to no

other purpose but the feeding of cattle, is so great in

proportion to what can be applied to other purposes, it is scarce

possible, perhaps, that their price could ever have risen so high

as to render it profitable to cultivate land for the sake of

feeding them.