profit of the one by keeping it in his own possession, and of the other by
parting with it. The price or value of his labouring cattle is a fixed
capital, in the same manner as that of the instruments of husbandry; their
maintenance is a circulating capital, in the same manner as that of the
labouring servants. The farmer makes his profit by keeping the labouring
cattle, and by parting with their maintenance. Both the price and the
maintenance of the cattle which are bought in and fattened, not for labour,
but for sale, are a circulating capital. The farmer makes his profit by
parting with them. A flock of sheep or a herd of cattle, that, in a breeding
country, is brought in neither for labour nor for sale, but in order to make
a profit by their wool, by their milk, and by their increase, is a fixed
capital. The profit is made by keeping them. Their maintenance is a
circulating capital. The profit is made by parting with it; and it comes
back with both its own profit and the profit upon the whole price of the
cattle, in the price of the wool, the milk, and the increase. The whole
value of the seed, too, is properly a fixed capital. Though it goes
backwards and forwards between the ground and the granary, it never changes
masters, and therefore does not properly circulate. The farmer makes his
profit, not by its sale, but by its increase.

The general stock of any country or society is the same with that of all its
inhabitants or members ; and, therefore, naturally divides itself into the
same three portions, each of which has a distinct function or office.

The first is that portion which is reserved for immediate consumption, and
of which the characteristic is, that it affords no revenue or profit. It
consists in the stock of food, clothes, household furniture, etc. which have
been purchased by their proper consumers, but which are not yet entirely
consumed. The whole stock of mere dwelling-houses, too, subsisting at anyone
time in the country, make a part of this first portion. The stock that is