114 Rents > Wages^ and Profits in Agriculture 



supplemented by legal or customary charity, 

 and you will agree that, from one point of 

 view, the falling ofi in the numbers em- 

 ployed in agriculture is a sign of national 

 progress and of great improvement in the 

 classes concerned. 



We may now consider how it is that this 

 improvement in the condition of agricultural 

 labour was so long retarded, and why it is 

 that the greatest improvement, for four 

 centuries at least, has taken place during 

 the last quarter of a century, which, 

 curiously enough, as regards agricultural 

 industry in general, has been a period of 

 profound depression, in which rents and 

 profits on the average have reached a 

 minimum. 



One of the most remarkable results 

 obtained from the application of inductive 

 and historical methods to economics is 

 that wages in agriculture are generally 



