248 General Observations. Bk. iii. 



labour could be employed upon it. The great 

 obstacle to the melioration of land is the difficulty, 

 the expense, and sometimes the impossibility, of 

 procuring a sufficient quantity of dressing, As 

 this instrument of improvement, therefore, is in 

 practice limited, whatever it maybe in theory, the 

 question will always be, how it may be most pro- 

 fitably employed ? And in any instance, where a 

 certain quantity of dressing and labour, employed 

 to bring new land into cultivation, would have 

 yielded a permanently greater produce, if em- 

 ployed upon old land, both the individual and the 

 nation are losers. Upon this principle, it is not 

 uncommon for farmers in some situations never to 

 dress their poorest land, but to get from it merely 

 a scanty crop every three or four years, and to 

 employ the whole of their manure, which they 

 practically feel is limited, on those parts of their 

 farms where it will produce a greater proportional 

 effect. 



The case will be different, of course, in a small 

 territory with a great poyjulation, supported on 

 funds not derived from their own soil. In this 

 case there will be a little or no choice of land, and 

 a comparative superabundance of manure; and 

 under such circumstances the poorest soils may 

 be brought under cultivation. But for this pur- 

 pose, it is not mere population that is wanted, but 

 a population which can obtain the produce of 

 other countries, while it is gradually improving its 

 own; otherwise it would be immediately reduced 

 in proportion to the limited produce of this small 



