precio ordinario de un buey, escogido de un hato de dos o trescientos. No dice nada sobre el precio del pan, probablemente porque no encontró nada notable al respecto. Un buey allí, afirma, cuesta poco más que el trabajo de capturarlo. Pero el grano no se puede cultivar en ninguna parte sin una gran cantidad de trabajo, y en un país situado sobre el Río de la Plata, que era en ese entonces la ruta directa desde Europa hacia las minas de plata de Potosí, el precio monetario del trabajo no podía ser muy barato. Sucede lo contrario cuando el cultivo se extiende por la mayor parte del país. Hay entonces más pan que carne de carnicería. La competencia cambia de dirección, y el precio de la carne de carnicería llega a ser mayor que el precio del pan.
By the extension besides of cultivation the unimproved wilds become insufficient to supply the demand for butcher’s-meat. A great part of the cultivated lands must be employed in rearing and fattening cattle, of which the price, therefore, must be sufficient to pay, not only the labour necessary for tending them, but the rent which the landlord and the profit which the farmer could have drawn from such land employed in tillage. The cattle bred upon the most uncultivated moors, when brought to the same market, are, in proportion to their weight or goodness, sold at the same price as those which are reared upon the most improved land. The proprietors of those moors profit by it, and raise the rent of their land in proportion to the price of their cattle. It is not more than a century ago that in many parts of the highlands of Scotland, butcher’s-meat was as cheap or cheaper than even bread made of oatmeal. The union opened the market of England to the highland cattle. Their ordinary price is at present about three times greater than at