Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/82

Rh In speaking first of the employment of capitals in the enterprises of Manufacture, I have had as my object to present a more striking example of the necessity and effect of large advances, and of the course of their circulation: but I have a little reversed the natural order, which would have required that I should begin by speaking of the enterprises of agriculture, which in like manner can neither be carried on nor extended nor made profitable save by means of great advances. It is the Possessors of great capitals who, in order to profit by them in agricultural enterprises, take leases of lands paying the Proprietors large rents, and undertaking to make all the advances of the cultivation. Their position is necessarily the same as that of the Undertakers of Manufactories: like them they are obliged to make the first advances of the undertaking, to provide themselves with cattle, with horses, with tools of husbandry, and to purchase the first seed; like them they are obliged to maintain and feed the Carters, Reapers, Threshers, Servants, and Workmen of every kind who have nothing but their arms, advance only their labour, and get only their wages; like them they have to obtain from the harvests, besides the return of their capitals, that is to say, of all their advances both original and annual, 1. a profit equal to the revenue they could acquire with their capitals without labour; 2. the wages and the price of their labour, of their risks, and of their industry; 3. that wherewith to replace annually the wear and tear of the property employed in their undertaking, the cattle that die, the tools that wear out, etc. All this must first be deducted from the