OF AGRICULTURE. 137 



of this country increase by one individual 

 every 1,000 seconds who think of a human 

 being as a mere claimant upon the stock of 

 material wealth of mankind, without being at 

 the same time a contributor to that stock. 

 But we, who see in each new-born babe a 

 future worker capable of producing much 

 more than his own share of the common stock 

 we greet his appearance. 



We know that a crowded population is a 

 necessary condition for permitting man to in- 

 crease the productive powers of his labour. We 

 know that highly productive labour is impossible 

 so long as men are scattered, few in numbers, 

 over wide territories, and are thus unable to 

 combine together for the higher achievements 

 of civilisation. We know what an amount of 

 labour must be spent to scratch the soil with a 

 primitive plough, to spin and weave by hand ; 

 and we know also how much less labour it 

 costs to grow the same amount of food and 

 weave the same cloth with the help of modern 

 machinery. 



We also see that it is infinitely easier to 

 grow 200,000 Ib. of food on one acre than to 

 grow them on ten acres. It is all very well 

 to imagine that wheat grows by itself on the 

 Russian steppes ; but those who have seen 

 how the peasant toils in ^Jie " fertile " black 



