Population and Sustenance. 67 



because nature's laws have been broken, not because tbej 

 have been obeyed. 



The question of the diminishing ratio of sustenance to 

 population demands particu'ar consideration. It is difficult 

 to apprehend the grounds upon which this principle is based. 

 Mr. Mill, who strenuously insists upon the law of decreasing 

 ratio between the agricultural product and the amount of 

 labor, to which he has perhaps been the first to give a clear 

 and comprehensive statement, himself admits the existence of 

 an agency in habitual antagonism to it; namely, the progress 

 of civilization, or the improvements by which the products of 

 labor are so greatly multiplied. This, if I understand him 

 correctly, operates more effectually in the mechanical industry 

 than in agricultural, and thus makes up a part of the lack 

 which relative diminution of produce from the soil creates ; 

 but not so much as to make the means of subsistence keep 

 pace with the natural increase of population. 



Now it may be true that of a certain portion of land, say tea 

 acres, or as much as one man can cultivate successfully, if two 

 men should labor, the product would not double, though this 

 would not always be the case. At any rate, the limit would 

 some time or other be reached beyond which doubling the 

 labor would not double the return. But this would, contrary 

 to Mr. Mills' supposition, indicate "a very advanced stage in 

 the progress of agriculture," at least, it would imply a cultiva- 

 tion of the soil such as no country, as a whole, has ever yet 

 nearly attained. I suppose that few would doubt that more 

 than double the present amount of produce might be effected 

 on the soil of Wisconsin already under cultivation, and that, 

 too, with less than double the present amount of labor be- 

 stowed. But then the most fertile soils have not yet been 

 brought under cultivation ; they are such as require for their 

 subjugation a very considerable advance in society and in the 

 art of agriculture. Probably the state of Wisconsm is not 

 to-day yielding one-twentieth part of the returns of which it is 



