172 Of the Checks to Population in Bk. i. 



dant population would raise its own food, and 

 generate the demand for it, as in America. 



This would, no doubt, be the case under fa- 

 vourable circumstances; if, for instance, in the 

 first place, the land were of such a nature as to 

 afford all the other materials of capital as well as 

 corn; secondly, if such land were to be purchased 

 in small lots, and the property well secured under 

 a free government; and, thirdly, if habits of in- 

 dustry and accumulation generally prevailed 

 among the mass of the people. But the failure 

 of any of these conditions would essentially check, 

 or might altogether stop, the progress of popula- 

 tion. Land that would bear the most abundant 

 crops of corn might be totally unfit for extensive 

 and general settlements from a want either of 

 wood or of water. The accumulations of indi- 

 viduals would go most reluctantly and slowly to 

 the land, if the tenures on which farms were held 

 were either insecure or degrading; and no facility 

 of production could effect a permanent increase 

 and proper distribution of the necessaries of life 

 under inveterate habits of indolence and want of 

 foresight. 



It is obvious that the favourable circumstances 

 here alluded to have not been combined in Sibe- 

 ria; and even on the supposition of there being 

 no physical defects in the nature of the soil to be 

 overcome, the political and moral difficulties in 

 the way of a rapid increase of population could 

 yield but slowly to the best-directed efforts. In 

 America the rapid increase of agricultural capital 



