So great a part of the circulating capital being continually withdrawn from
it, in order to be placed in the other two branches of the general stock of
the society, it must in its turn require continual supplies without which it
would soon cease to exist. These supplies are principally drawn from three
sources; the produce of land, of mines, and of fisheries. These afford
continual supplies of provisions and materials, of which part is afterwards
wrought up into finished work and by which are replaced the provisions,
materials, and finished work, continually withdrawn from the circulating
capital. From mines, too, is drawn what is necessary for maintaining and
augmenting that part of it which consists in money. For though, in the
ordinary course of business, this part is not, like the other three,
necessarily withdrawn from it, in order to be placed in the other two
branches of the general stock of the society, it must, however, like all
other things, be wasted and worn out at last, and sometimes, too, be either
lost or sent abroad, and must, therefore, require continual, though no doubt
much smaller supplies.

Lands, mines, and fisheries, require all both a fixed and circulating
capital to cultivate them; and their produce replaces, with a profit not
only those capitals, but all the others in the society. Thus the farmer
annually replaces to the manufacturer the provisions which he had consumed,
and the materials which he had wrought up the year before; and the
manufacturer replaces to the farmer the finished work which he had wasted
and worn out in the same time. This is the real exchange that is annually
made between those two orders of people, though it seldom happens that the
rude produce of the one, and the manufactured produce of the other, are
directly bartered for one another ; because it seldom happens that the
farmer sells his corn and his cattle, his flax and his wool, to the very
same person of whom he chuses to purchase the clothes, furniture, and
instruments of trade, which he wants. He sells, therefore, his rude produce