AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



per acre of land is represented as being attributed 

 to the farmers and to the capital-goods on the 

 more productive than on the less productive 

 grades. This is intended to indicate that even 

 under the conditions of homogeneous farmers and 

 homogeneous capital-goods the more productive 

 grades of land would be farmed more intensively, 

 and hence a larger amount per unit of land would 

 be credited to these factors. 



The fact that these more productive grades of 

 land are cultivated more intensively and that a 

 larger amount is for this reason credited to the 

 other factors from each acre of land, does not 

 lessen the amount of rent, but rather increases the 

 amount which can be paid for the use of the more 

 productive land. That the best land can, with 

 profit, be cultivated more intensively when less pro- 

 ductive land must be resorted to, than when the 

 supply of best land exceeded the demand; and that 

 this results in a greater rent being paid for the more 

 productive land than the surplus over costs which 

 would result from farming such land to that degree 

 of intensity which paid best when it could be had 

 free, was recognized and elucidated by Ricardo. 



To illustrate the influence of variations in the 

 intensity of culture upon the amount of differen- 

 tial rent which will be paid for the better grades 

 of land when less productive land must be resorted 

 to in order to supply the demand for agricultural 

 products, suppose that a farmer has three grades 

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