342 APPLICATION OF CAPITAL AND LABOUR 



favoured districts. In America, the extent of soil and thin po 

 pulation has not distorted effects, and nature s portion of farm 

 produce is not absorbed by rent. The results of capital and 

 labour being represented in quantities of produce, and their 

 hire paid in money, it follows, that the cash-value of the 

 former must generally exceed the latter, and that an addition 

 al application of capital and labour to cultivation is a conse 

 quence of produce being high priced compared with their 

 hire. Accordingly, in all parts of the country where pro 

 duce is high, labour is low, and where produce is low, labour 

 is high. 



In Britain, the hire of agricultural labour has been affected, 

 and in all probability will continue to be regulated, by the 

 wages of the unagricultural part of the population. Without 

 manufactures and commerce, the condition of her rural inha 

 bitants would have approached the present state of the Irish 

 people. In America, the returns of the agriculturist appear 

 to regulate the wages of other classes. When they are high, 

 other classes are attracted to farming; when low, farmers 

 change their profession ; Americans generally being able to 

 exercise two or three professions. 



The origin and progress of rent seem to admit of easy solu 

 tion. In the western prairies of America, where cheap and 

 good cleared land is almost as abundant as air, rent is un 

 known, except in the neighbourhood of towns. In the eastern 

 districts, where good cleared land is of limited extent, com 

 pared with the inhabitants, rent is paid. Thus, population is 

 the origin of rent, which is the value of produce above what 

 it hath cost in raising and carrying to market. At first, it 

 consists of a small portion of the produce furnished by nature ; 

 with an increase of population the whole is absorbed, and ul 

 timately also, parts of the results of capital and labour. Rent 

 is also affected by the condition as well as by the number of 

 the people ; and, under a parity of circumstances, will be found 

 to augment in the ratio of the number and misery of the agri 

 cultural inhabitants. 



Until land yields rent, it is not worth purchase-money, 

 and in proportion to a rise of rent its price will increase. 

 Lands, therefore, sell at a considerable sum on the eastern 



