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But loss must be the necessary consequence of improving land for

the sake of a produce of which the price could never bring back

the expense. If the complete improvement and cultivation of the

country be, as it most certainly is, the greatest of all public

advantages, this rise in the price of all those different sorts

of rude produce, instead of being considered as a public

calamity, ought to be regarded as the necessary forerunner and

attendant of the greatest of all public advantages.

This rise, too, in the nominal or money price of all those

different sorts of rude produce, has been the effect, not of any

degradation in the value of silver, but of a rise in their real

price. They have become worth, not only a greater quantity of

silver, but a greater quantity of labour and subsistence than

before. As it costs a greater quantity of labour and subsistence

to bring them to market, so, when they are brought thither they

represent, or are equivalent to a greater quantity.