Book II: Chapter 1 - Page 2

merchant, for example, is altogether a circulating capital.
He has occasion for no machines or instruments of trade, unless his shop or
warehouse be considered as such.

Some part of the capital of every master artificer or manufacturer must be
fixed in the instruments of his trade. This part, however, is very small in
some, and very great in others, A master tailor requires no other
instruments of trade but a parcel of needles. Those of the master shoemaker
are a little, though but a very little, more expensive. Those of the weaver
rise a good deal above those of the shoemaker. The far greater part of the
capital of all such master artificers, however, is circulated either in the
wages of their workmen, or in the price of their materials, and repaid, with
a profit, by the price of the work.

In other works a much greater fixed capital is required. In a great
iron-work, for example, the furnace for melting the ore, the forge, the
slit-mill, are instruments of trade which cannot be erected without a very
great expense. In coal works, and mines of every kind, the machinery
necessary, both for drawing out the water, and for other purposes, is
frequently still more expensive.

That part of the capital of the farmer which is employed in the instruments
of agriculture is a fixed, that which is employed in the wages and
maintenance of his labouring servants is a circulating capital. He makes a
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