2651ページ中623ページ

As wealth and luxury increase, therefore, in consequence of

improvement and cultivation, the price of poultry gradually rises

above that of butcher's meat, till at last it gets so high, that

it becomes profitable to cultivate land for the sake of feeding

them. When it has got to this height, it cannot well go higher.

If it did, more land would soon be turned to this purpose. In

several provinces of France, the feeding of poultry is considered

as a very important article in rural economy, and sufficiently

profitable to encourage the farmer to raise a considerable

quantity of Indian corn and buckwheat for this purpose. A

middling farmer will there sometimes have four hundred fowls in

his yard. The feeding of poultry seems scarce yet to be generally

considered as a matter of so much importance in England. They are

certainly, however, dearer in England than in France, as England

receives considerable supplies from France.