202 Progress of Population arid Wealth 



CHAPTER XXI. 



THE INCREASE OF WEALTH. 



Having ascertained the amount of the national income, it would 

 on many accounts be desirable to ascertain also its ratio of in- 

 crease, and more especially whether it increases at the same rate 

 as the population or at a different rate. 



There are obvious reasons why the wealth of an industrious and 

 prosperous community should increase faster than its population. 

 Every year adds to its stock of labour-saving tools and machinery, 

 as well as improves their usefulness. Lands, too, are made more pro- 

 ductive by draining, ditching, manuring, and better modes of cul- 

 ture. Both science and practical art are constantly enlarging the 

 quantity of manufactured commodities, and yet more improving 

 their quality. By means of cheaper and quicker modes of trans- 

 portation, much of that labour which, in every country is expended, 

 not in producing, but in transferring products from place to place, is 

 saved and rendered directly productive : and lastly, the small ex- 

 cess of annual income over annual expense is constantly adding to 

 the mass of capital, which is so efficient an agent of production. 



But we must bear in mind that so far as this improvement in the 

 sources of wealth are shared by the whole civilized world, it is not 

 manifested in pecuniary estimates of annual products, supposing 

 the value of the precious metals to be unchanged, since the same 

 portion of them will be constantly representing a greater and 

 greater amount of what is useful and convenient to man. It is only 

 where the increase of wealth of a country is faster or slower than 

 the average that it will be shown in the money value of its annual 

 products compared with its population. It is, then, the relative and 

 not the positive increase of wealth in the United States which we 

 propose to consider. 



Had each preceding census furnished the information afforded 

 by the census of 1840, this question had been of easy solution. But 



