Sayfa 439 / 2651

A rice field produces a much greater quantity of food than the

most fertile corn field. Two crops in the year, from thirty to

sixty bushels each, are said to be the ordinary produce of an

acre. Though its cultivation, therefore, requires more labour, a

much greater surplus remains after maintaining all that labour.

In those rice countries, therefore, where rice is the common and

favourite vegetable food of the people, and where the cultivators

are chiefly maintained with it, a greater share of this greater

surplus should belong to the landlord than in corn countries. In

Carolina, where the planters, as in other British colonies, are

generally both farmers and landlords, and where rent,

consequently, is confounded with profit, the cultivation of rice

is found to be more profitable than that of corn, though their

fields produce only one crop in the year, and though, from the

prevalence of the customs of Europe, rice is not there the common

and favourite vegetable food of the people.