6i6 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



and the future value of a given tract, and thus buy and sell upon bases 

 more rational than those commonly in use. A study of current prices 

 of western fruit lands might be interesting in this connection. 



A. The Basis in Differential Return 



193. THE RICARDIAN DOCTRINE 1 

 BY DAVID RICARDO 



Rent is that portion of the produce of the earth which is paid to 

 the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of 

 the soil. 



On the first settling of a country in which there is an abundance of 

 rich and fertile land, a very small proportion of which is required to 

 be cultivated for the support of the actual population, or indeed can 

 be cultivated with the capital which the population can command, 

 there will be no rent; for no one would pay for the use of land, when 

 there was an abundant quantity not yet appropriated and, therefore, 

 at the disposal of whosoever might choose to cultivate it. On the 

 common principles of supply and demand, no rent could be paid for 

 such land, for the reason that nothing is given for the use of air and 

 water or for any other of the gifts of nature which exist in boundless 

 quantity. If all land had the same properties, if it were unlimited 

 in quantity, no charge could be made for its use, unless where it pos- 

 sessed peculiar advantages of situation. It is only, then, because land 

 is not unlimited in quantity and uniform in quality, and because in 

 the progress of population, land of an inferior quality or less advan- 

 tageously situated is called into cultivation, that rent is ever paid for 

 the use of it. 



When, in the progress of society, land of the second degree of 

 fertility is taken into cultivation, rent immediately commences on 

 that of the first quality, and the amount of that rent will depend on 

 the difference in the quality of these two portions of land. When 

 land of the third quality is taken into cultivation, rent immediately 

 commences on the second, and it is regulated as before, by the differ- 

 ence in their productive powers. At the same time, the rent of the 

 first quality will rise, for that must always be above the rent of the 

 second, by the difference between the produce which they will yield 

 with a given quantity of capital and labor. With every step in the 



1 Adapted from Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, chap, ii, 24-27. 



