A gentleman who farms a part of his own estate, after paying the expense of
cultivation, should gain both the rent of the landlord and the profit of the
farmer. He is apt to denominate, however, his whole gain, profit, and thus
confounds rent with profit, at least in common language. The greater part of
our North American and West Indian planters are in this situation. They
farm, the greater part of them, their own estates : and accordingly we
seldom hear of the rent of a plantation, but frequently of its profit.

Common farmers seldom employ any overseer to direct the general operations
of the farm. They generally, too, work a good deal with their own hands, as
ploughmen, harrowers, etc. What remains of the crop, after paying the rent,
therefore, should not only replace to them their stock employed in
cultivation, together with its ordinary profits, but pay them the wages
which are due to them, both as labourers and overseers. Whatever remains,
however, after paying the rent and keeping up the stock, is called profit.
But wages evidently make a part of it. The farmer, by saving these wages,
must necessarily gain them. Wages, therefore, are in this case confounded
with profit.

An independent manufacturer, who has stock enough both to purchase
materials, and to maintain himself till he can carry his work to market,
should gain both the wages of a journeyman who works under a master, and the
profit which that master makes by the sale of that journeyman's work. His
whole gains, however, are commonly called profit, and wages are, in this
case, too, confounded with profit.

A gardener who cultivates his own garden with his own hands, unites in his
own person the three different characters, of landlord, farmer, and
labourer. His produce, therefore, should pay him the rent of the first, the
profit of the second, and the wages of the third. The whole, however, is