countries where population is limited, and "where vast tracts of good land remain uncultivated, wages may be extremely low, and the profits of the cultivator not high." This is in direct opposition to his doctrine, that wages and profits must both be high when only the most fertile lands are cultivated. He finds that even "the rich countries of India and South America" are in this condition, and attributes it to "indif ferent cultivation." If, however, every successive application of labour, either in rendering fertile soils more productive, or in bringing into cultivation those of an inferior quality, be attended with a diminished return to labour and capital, is it not obvious that such must continue to be the case in those countries? If fertile lands will not give them high wages and high profits, can they ever expect to have them when every new exertion must be attended with diminished return? Certainly not!

To support this doctrine it is necessary to find new reasons for each case, and that which may account for one, is in direct opposition to another. How different is the case when we reject the idea of value in land, and find it in the labour applied to its improvement! Every difficulty then vanishes. We find present labour and capital increasing in value when compared with those of past times, giving increased wages and profits, as we know them to exist. We find the people of India, and of South America, with abundance of fertile land, obtaining but small returns to labour, while the people of the United States, of Great Britain, and of the Netherlands, obtain large returns from lands of inferior quality, because aided by capital.

CHAPTER XII.

REVIEW. MR. RICARDO.

We proceed now to an examination of the causes of value in land as stated by Mr. Ricardo, and give nearly all that he has said on the subject, in order that the reader may be fully in possession of his views,

"Rent is that portion of the produce of the earth, which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil. It is often, however, confounded with the interest and profit of capital, and in popular language the term is applied to whatever is annually paid by a farmer to his landlord. If, of two adjoining farms of the same extent, and of the same natural fertility, one had all the conveniences of farming buildings, and, besides, were properly drained and manured, and advantageously divided by hedges, fences, and walls, while the other had none of these advantages, more remuneration would naturally be paid for the use of one, than for the use of the other; yet in both cases this remuneration would be called rent. But it is evident, that a portion only of the money annually to be paid for the improved farm, would be given for the original and indestructible powers of the soil; the other portion would be paid for the use of the capital which had been employed in ameliorating the quality of the land, and in erecting such buildings as were necessary to secure and preserve the produce. * Whenever I speak of the rent of land, I wish to be understood as speaking of that compensation, which is paid to the owner of land for the use of its original and indestructible powers."*

Here it is distinctly stated that it is for the use of the "original and indestructible powers of the soil," that rent is paid. Fertility alone is the cause of exchangeable value, and there is no admixture of advantages of situation, fatal as they would be to the whole theory.

"Adam Smith sometimes speaks of rent, in the strict sense to which I am desirous of confining it, but more often in the popular sense, in

* Ricardo's Political Economy, Chapter II.

which the term is usually employed. He tells us, that the demand for timber, and its consequent high price, in the more southern countries of Europe, caused a rent to be paid for forests in Norway, which could before afford no rent. Is it not however evident, that the person who paid, what he thus calls rent, paid it in consideration of the valuable commodity which was then standing on the land, and that he actually repaid himself with a profit, by the sale of the timber? If, indeed, after the timber was removed, any compensation were paid to the landlord for the use of the land, for the purpose of growing timber or any other produce, with a view to future demand, such compensation might justly be called rent, because it would be paid for the productive powers of the land; but in the case stated by Adam Smith, the compensation was paid for the liberty of removing and selling the timber, and not for the liberty of growing it. He speaks also of the rent of coal mines, and of stone quarries, to which the same observation applies-that the compensation given for the mine or quarry, is paid for the value of the coal or stone which can be removed from them, and has no connexion with the original and indestructible powers of the land. This is a distinction of great importance, in an inquiry concerning rent and profits; for it is found, that the laws which regulate the progress of rent, are widely different from those which regulate the progress of profits, and seldom operate in the same direction."*

The man who was paid for the right of cutting forests in Norway received his rent for fifty years in one payment. For that period he had paid taxes on his land, had contributed to the making of roads and other improvements, and, instead of obtaining an annual crop, he received in one payment the value of that of fifty, or one hundred, years. It is a matter of daily occurrence that wood-land, in New Jersey, changes hands from year to year, at a price regularly increasing with the growth of timber, until at length harvest time arrives and the land falls in price, to rise again in the course of the next twenty, thirty, or forty years. If there be any objection to this as rent, it must equally apply to a crop of onions requiring two years to arrive at maturity. If any land were capable of producing that vegetable only, it would be found that its exchangeable value was constantly rising as harvest time approached, to fall as suddenly as pine land, when the crop had been taken.

Ricardo's Political Economy, Chapter II.

Some timber is fit to cut in thirty years, while other lands require a century to renew themselves, giving to the proprietor but a centennial crop. In the case of coal mines and of stone quarries, five, or even ten, centuries may be required to prepare to reap the harvest, during the whole of which period, capital has been expending in the preparation therefor. During all that time the land may have borne a value regularly increasing with the expenditure and with the approach of harvest, as is the case with land occupied by wheat, onions, or timber. At length the time arrives, and the proprietor reaps the reward to which his previous expenditure entitles him. There appears to us no difference, but Mr. Ricardo says that the two operations are very different, and that the coal, or stone, has no connexion with the original and indestructible powers of the soil. What are indestructible powers? The most fertile soil, if not renewed, will have its powers destroyed.

In Virginia, the best land has been cropped until it is entirely worthless. Had a good system of cultivation been pursued, it might now be of great value, and might yet be rendered so, but to what would those powers of production be due? To the original and indestructible powers, or to the manure--to the labour-to the capital-employed upon it? In the case of coal or granite, if the course of the owner resemble that generally pursued in Virginia, taking successive crops without returning a part of the proceeds, the powers of the soil become exhausted, and the land is valueless; but, if a portion of the proceeds of the coal be appropriated to sinking deeper shafts, new powers are discovered, giving the owner a property constantly increasing in value, as has been the case in England.

Let the reader examine the course of a crop of wheat, during the eight or nine months that it occupies the soil-of a crop of onions during the two years-of a crop of pine trees, for thirty or forty years-of a crop of oaks, during a century—of a crop of coal, for five or ten centuries, and he will find it precisely the same. All the lands thus occupied attain a value from the labour bestowed upon them; all have a constantly increasing value up to the time of harvest, and all fall suddenly when the cause of value is withdrawn. The value of coal land cannot change more suddenly than that of pine land, which falls, when

the crop is off, to a merely nominal price, not exceeding 25 cents per acre. The man who gives that price for it expects to obtain, at the end of thirty years, a rent that will replace his capital, with interest, and some reward for his attention, while another who gives a hundred, or a thousand, dollars for an acre of coal land, expects to receive a yearly return for a certain time, at the expiration of which he may, by sinking one hundred or two hundred feet, find a new crop prepared for his use.

"On the first settling of a country, in which there is an abundance of rich and fertile land, a very small portion of which is required to be cultivated for the support of the actual population, or indeed can be cultivated with the capital which the population can command, there will be no rent: for no one would pay for the use of land, when there was an abundant quantity not yet appropriated, and therefore at the disposal of whosoever might choose to cultivate it.

"On the common principles of supply and demand, no rent could be paid for such land, for the reason stated, why nothing is given for the use of air and water, or for any other of the gifts of nature which exist in boundless quantity. With a given quantity of mate. rials, and with the assistance of the pressure of the atmosphere, and the elasticity of steam, engines may perform work, and abridge human labour to a very great extent; but no charge is made for the use of these natural aids, because they are inexhaustible, and at every man's disposal. In the same manner the brewer, the distiller, the dyer, make incessant use of the air and water for the production of their commodities; but as the supply is boundless, it bears no price. If all land had the same properties, if it were boundless in quantity, and uniform in quality, no charge could be made for its use, unless where it possessed peculiar advantages of situation. It is only then because land is not unlimited in quantity and uniform in quality, and because in the progress of population, land of an inferior quality, or less advantageously situated, is called into cultivation, that rent is ever paid for the use of it. When, in the progress of society, land of the second degree of fertility is taken into cultivation, rent immediately commences on that of the first quality, and the amount of that rent will depend on the difference in the quality of these two portions of land."*

Here Mr. Ricardo finds himself compelled to bring into view

Ricardo's Political Economy, Chapter II.