OUTTUEN OF PKODUCE 3 



good return on his capital as to support himself and 

 his family by a congenial occupation. In the case 

 of many Indian holdings the great bulk of the capital 

 employed consists of the value of the land ; and land 

 values may be, and often are, unduly inflated by the 

 pressure of the population on the soil, and by the fact 

 that there is a keen demand for land as a safe and 

 obvious investment, without much regard to the rate 

 of return that may be expected from it. For our 

 purposes a more valuable estimate of agricultural 

 progress would be based on the outturn of agri- 

 cultural produce per acre at various periods. Such a 

 criterion is often taken in the case of other countries. 

 It will be stated, for instance, that in the present day, 

 as a result of rapid progress in Denmark, the average 

 gross agricultural produce of land per acre in Denmark 

 is about £8 as compared with an outturn of £4 

 per acre which was obtained fifty years ago in that 

 country, and which is taken as the average outturn 

 of farm land in England at the present day. In a 

 country like Australia, on the other hand, where land 

 is abundant and the population small, extensive 

 cultivation of large areas with a necessarily small out- 

 turn per acre may be profitable to individuals, though 

 American observers have questioned whether in such 

 conditions better results, both for the individual and 

 for the State, cannot be obtained by more intensive 

 methods on a smaller area. In western India where 

 the population presses heavily on the cultivable soil, 

 which is all occupied in small holdings, the outturn 



