156 Of Systems of Agriculture Bk. iii. 



- population may, in some degree, be sudden, 

 though, in that case, it cannot take place without 

 a considerable convulsion. But when the capital 

 of a country comes to a stop from the continued 

 progress of accumulation and the exhaustion of 

 the cultivable land, both the profits of stock and 

 the wages of labour must have been gradually 

 diminishing for a long period, till they are both 

 ultimately so low as to afford no further encou- 

 ragement to an increase of stock, and no further 

 means for the support of an increasing population. 

 If we could suppose that the capital employed 

 upon the land was, at all times, as great as could 

 possibly be applied with the same profit, and 

 there were no agricultural improvements to save 

 labour, it is obvious that, as accumulation pro- 

 ceeded, profits and wages would regularly fall, 

 and the diminished rate in the progress of popu- 

 lation would be quite regular. But practically 

 this can never happen ; and various causes, both 

 natural and artificial, will concur to prevent this 

 regularity, and occasion great variations at diffe- 

 rent times in the rate at which the population pro-, 

 ceeds towards its final limit. 



In the first place, land is practically almost 

 always understocked with capital. This arises 

 partly from the usual tenures on which farms 

 are held, which, by discouraging the transfer 

 of capital from commerce and manufactures, 

 leaves it principally to be generated on the land ; 

 and partly from the very nature of much of the 

 soil of almost all large countries, which is such 



