20 WAGES AND EMPIRE 



of such land is not sufficient, or that they are too many 

 for the extent of such land which their country contains. 

 The result of this is that men unable to obtain for cul- 

 tivation land naturally fitted turn to other land which 

 they are able to convert into a condition suitable for 

 agriculture. Consequently their labour does not bring 

 them in so much as it might, because it is not all devoted 

 to cultivation proper ; but some of it is given up to 

 rendering the land fit for cultivation, or ' ameliorating ' 

 it, as it is called. The extent to which this inferior land 

 is cultivated, and the amount of labour wasted on 

 ameliorating it, is responsible for the difference between 

 the low wages of Europe and the high wages of America 

 and other countries of the western hemisphere. 



In every country of Europe (and Asia) there is in 

 use a large quantity of land whose fertility is man- 

 created, and must be constantly maintained. Heavy 

 capital charges are incurred and great annual expenditure 

 is necessary to render the land cultivable ; clays are 

 treated with sand, and sands with clay, both with 

 bulky vegetable matter ; drainage involving an annual 

 charge of los. an acre takes place over a considerable 

 part of the land of this nature ; and a great deal of 

 the annual operations of agriculture which have the 

 appearance of being the ordinary work of husbandry — 

 the repeated ploughings and harrowings for instance — 

 are in truth devoted not to cultivation but to overcoming 

 the refractory nature of the soil (see Table No. III). 



As there is a disinclination on the part of those 

 who are not practically acquainted with agriculture to 

 believe in the incultivability of much land and of the 

 difficult nature of much that can be rendered cultivable, 

 an account is given here of the cultivation of the surface 

 of the British Islands. 



The following table (No. IV), although it refers only 

 to the case of the United Kingdom, shows that the 



