28 WAGES AND EMPIRE 



is the maximum of which the nature of their surface 

 allows. 



This recitd should sufficiently demonstrate the 

 fact that to speak of land and of cultivable land is not 

 the same thing. Most of the dry surface of the earth 

 is, with the means at present at our disposal, not cul- 

 tivable at all. That part which is in its natural state 

 cultivable is rather small, but other parts are capable 

 of being rendered cultivable, and knowledge is con- 

 stantly increasing the range of land which can be 

 turned to profitable use. 



The effect of the shortage of land, or of too great 

 population. — Now the shortness of land has two effects. 

 The good land being gone very soon it drives people 

 to cultivate inferior qualities, and, in addition, when 

 the inferior qualities are all gone it prevents population 

 increasing any more. The progress of knowledge, 

 however, both in making the hitherto useless lands 

 cultivable and by increasing the use of the lands already 

 in cultivation counteracts these two effects. Science 

 increases the amount of good land, raises much of the 

 inferior land into the category of good, and brings into 

 cultivation whole tracts of hitherto uncultivable land, 

 placing some of them in the superior and some of them 

 in the inferior categories. That being the case, it may 

 be as well to observe in detail some of the ways in which 

 scientific progress works in bringing about this result. 



How science mitigates the shortage of land. — Land 

 may be infertile owing to its mechanical condition, 

 owing to a defect of the ingredients for plant life, or 

 because no useful plant capable of thriving upon it has 

 been found. 



The condition of infertility of land arising from its 

 mechanical state, when for instance it is too wet or too 

 dry, or is clayey or sandy, is capable of being remedied 

 by labour. In such a case everything which cheapens 



