Note 143 — Chapter II · : ADAM SMITH

“Farmers and country labourers, indeed, over and above the stock which maintains and employs them, reproduce annually a neat produce, a free rent to the landlord. As a marriage which affords three children is certainly more productive than one which affords only two; so the labour of farmers and country labourers is certainly more productive than that of merchants, artificers, and manufacturers. The superior produce of the one class, however, does not render the other barren or unproductive.” (Wealth of Nations, Book IV, chap. 9; Cannan, vol. ii, p. 173.)