Ch. X. and Commerct combined. 159 



time that the price of raw produce takes the lead, 

 it is obvious that the profits of cultivation may 

 increase under an extended agriculture, and a 

 continued accumulation of capital. And these 

 intervals, it should be observed, must be of infi- 

 nite importance in the progress of the v^^ealth of 

 a landed nation, particularly with reference to the 

 causes of deficient capital upon the land before 

 mentioned. If the land, for the most part, gene- 

 rates the new capital which is employed in ex- 

 tending its cultivation ; and if the employment of 

 a considerable capital for a certain period will 

 often put land in such a state, that it can be culti- 

 vated afterwards at comparatively little expense; 

 a period of high agricultural profits, though it may 

 last only eight or ten years, may often be the 

 means of giving to a country what is equivalent 

 to a fresh quantity of land. 



Though it is unquestionably and necessarily 

 true, therefore, that the ttmkncy of a continually 

 increasing capital and extending cultivation is to 

 occasion a progressive fall both of profits and 

 wages ; yet the causes above enumerated are evi- 

 dently sufficient to account for great and long ir- 

 regularities in this progress. 



We see, in consequence, in all the states of Eu- 

 rope, great variations at different periods in the 

 progress of their capital and population. After 

 slumbering for years in a state almost stationary, 

 some countries have made a sudden start, and 



communicated to those commodities, in the production of which 

 there is no increase of labour. 



