Rural Depopulation 157 



food supply, we soon come to the point of 

 what is called diminishing return to land. 

 For a short time at the beginning of the 

 nineteenth century, as regards the whole 

 corn area of England, it may be said these 

 conditions had been realised — that is to say, 

 the corn could only be increased by taking 

 into cultivation inferior land, or by applying 

 more costly methods. 



But even then improvements were being 

 continually made, so that we find the price 

 of corn falling and the numbers of those 

 employed in agriculture diminishing. And 

 under present conditions, what we must 

 expect for apparently a considerable time 

 is not diminishing, but increasing return, 

 i.e., less labour for a given amount of 

 produce. 



That the relative increase of the urban 

 population is due to some wide-reaching 

 economic causes, and not to any peculiarities 



