FACTORS OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION 121 



When, therefore, a country begins to feel the slightest scarcity 

 of agricultural land, when it begins to realize that it is near- 

 ing the limits of its population and wealth from that source, it 

 nor unnaturally turns its attention to manufacturing, provided 

 markets can be found. These are needed, both as places for 

 buving raw materials and for selling finished products, if the 

 nation is to continue to grow beyond the limits set by its power 

 to produce raw materials within its own territory. Every such 

 expansion of the trade area is like the acquisition of new ag- 

 ricultural land, in that it enables the population to expand with- 

 out feeling the pressure of land scarcity. When the markets 

 are thus expanded a manufacturing population can increase its 

 numbers without any appreciable diminution in its per capita 

 production, or without any increase in the labor necessary to 

 produce each unit of product. The question of markets is 

 therefore the question of transcendent importance for a grow- 

 ing manufacturing population, as the question of land is for a 

 growing agricultural population. 



A commercial and manufacturing policy pure and simple, 

 however, while highly profitable for a time if pursued by a 

 small portion of mankind, is very illusive in the long run, and 

 brings inevitable disaster if pursued by many nations or a large 

 portion of mankind. For one nation to depend for its living, 

 not upon the products of its own soil, mines, and fisheries, but 

 upon the sale of its manufactured products in foreign markets, 

 may be safe ; but for all nations or any considerable number of 

 them to try to live in this way would reduce them to the con- 

 dition alleged to exist on a certain island, where the people are 

 said to make their living by taking in one another's washing. 

 The "prosperity of the world as a whole will and must depend 

 fundamentally upon its primary or extractive industries. 



It: we turn our attention from the broader question of na- 

 tional economy to some of the narrower questions of urban 



