Natural products, &c. subject to a greater variation in their value, than artificial.

Commodities are called bulky or said to be cheap, which bear but a small proportion of value to others of equal bulk; and these are natural products, either growing spontaneously, or requiring no great art and labour in their cultivation; as grain of all sorts, cattle for food or labour, timber and stone for building, fuel, &c. The goodness of Providence having so ordered things, that those main supports of life should abound every where, according to the exigencies of different climates. And of metals, that most useful one, iron, is in our happy clime the cheapest.

The quantity of corn, &c. produced from the same number of acres, and from the same quantity of labour, being sometimes very different, according to the difference of seasons; grain of all sorts, as also cattle from mortality amongst them, or other casualties, are subject to much greater variations in their values, than artificial products; and a bushel of corn may be worth twice or thrice as much cloth, at one time as at another. Corn must be had; and the farmers will endeavour to make as much of their small stock, as when they had a greater plenty; on the other hand, when the market is full, they must lower their price; till, after reckoning the value of the land, the labour bestowed in raising a bushel of corn, and in fabricating the thing for which it is exchanged, are on both sides nearly equal. Things of a more limited vent, are subject to vary yet more from their usual price, than corn, as apples, hops, &c.