LAND AND OTHER AGENTS OF PRODUCTION 183 



limited still. It is also evident that the quantity of produce capable 

 of being raised on any given piece of land is not indefinite. This 

 limited quantity of land, and limited productiveness of it, are the real 

 limits to the increase of production. Such limitation is not, however, 

 like the obstacle opposed by a wall, which stands immovable in one 

 particular spot, and offers no hindrance to motion short of stopping 

 it entirely. We may rather compare it to a highly elastic and exten- 

 sible band, which is hardly ever so violently stretched that it could 

 not possibly be stretched any more, yet the pressure of which is felt 

 long before the final limit is reached, and felt more severely the 

 nearer that limit is approached. 



After a certain, and not very advanced, stage in the progress of 

 agriculture, it is the law of production from the land that, in any 

 given state of agricultural skill and knowledge, by increasing the 

 labor the produce is not increased in an equal degree; or, to express 

 the same thing in other words, every increase of produce is obtained 

 by a more than proportional increase in the application of labor to the 

 land. This general law of agricultural industry is the most important 

 proposition in political economy. The most fundamental errors 

 which still prevail on our subject result from not perceiving this law 

 at work underneath the more superficial agencies on which attention 

 fixes itself. 



When, for the purpose of raising an increase of produce, recourse 

 is had to inferior land, it is evident that, so far, the produce does not 

 increase in the same proportion with the labor. The very meaning 

 of inferior land is land which with equal labor returns a smaller amount 

 of produce. Land may be inferior either in fertility or in situation. 

 The one requires a greater proportional amount of labor for growing 

 the produce, the other for carrying it to market. If the land A yields 

 a thousand quarters of wheat to a given outlay of wages, manure, 

 etc., and in order to raise another thousand recourse must be had to 

 the land B, which is either less fertile or more distant from the mar- 

 ket, the two thousand will cost more than twice as much labor as the 

 original thousand, and the produce of agriculture will be increased in 

 a less ratio than the labor employed in procuring it. 



Instead of cultivating the land B, it would be possible, by higher 

 cultivation, to make the land A produce more. It might be plowed 

 or harrowed twice instead of once; it might be oftener or more thor- 

 oughly weeded; more elaborate implements might be used in its cul- 

 tivation; a greater quantity or more expensive kinds of manure might 

 be applied, or when applied they might be more carefully mixed and 



