76 
On the Original Source of Wealth , 
[March, 
for even if it had not been strictly as is here assumed, human nutriment, being 
yielded, not by the most hardy and durable descriptions of organic products ; and 
all organic products, whether useful or noxious to man, being gifted with the power 
of reproduction and increase ; it follows, that even if we supposed the earth, in 
the first instance, yielding principally food, a short period only could elapse, ere 
the more hardy and durable products shall be found to have usurped that space 
which had originally been possessed by the more delicate and useful ; and hence it 
follows, that man, stimulated as he is to increase of numbers, will very early be 
found suffering embarrassment on either hand ; on this, by the energy of the vital 
power, urging him to constant increase, by its inherent influence on himself; and 
on that, by the same influence, exhibiting its power in the progress of all descrip- 
tions of noxious vegetation. 
I am, therefore, justified in the assumption, that a necessity, in all ordinary cir- 
cumstances, may be assumed to exist in an infant agricultural population, for 
endeavours to avert the miseries incident on insufficient nourishment ; and that 
human labour is, in all ordinary circumstances, continually required for dressing 
and preparing the soil ; and for displacing those germs, the developement of which 
is prejudicial to the well being of man ; as also in preserving and planting, in due 
season, such germs alone as are calculated to yield him nutriment. 
But man, with his naked hands, is but powerless when compared with the mighty 
obstacles he may be destined to encounter ; and when we contemplate the gigantic 
effects of his antagonist, vegetation, as exhibited in most uncultivated countries of 
the world, we may check surprize at finding him so very frequently, a helpless 
savage, ignorant of the elements even of agricultural science, and depending for 
subsistence, not on products which his reason and industry enabled him to secure 
and increase, but in the scanty and uncertain pittance which circumstances casual- 
ly supply, or which the fortune of the chace brings within his reach. 
In these circumstances, as wealth can hardly be said to exist, all which men 
at that time possess and enjoy, making a near approximation to that on which the 
lower animals subsist, all of which exercise, to a certain extent, what may be 
called appropriative industry, we may pass to that state of society, where man, 
under more favourable circumstances, has succeeded in bringing the reproductive 
and incremental principle under his controul, and where true wealth and revenue 
are consequently found. Commencing from this point, it will be the province of 
the political economist to mark the successive steps, by which that powerful prin- 
ciple is forced to yield to man, greater and greater obedience ; and to grant to his 
increasing numbers, a constantly increasing quantity of the products essential to 
his well being. Nor will the supposition of great or little fertility in the soil, alter 
the first principle here assumed, that labour is inevitable; for in proportion to 
the fertility of the tracts man wishes to cultivate, so must be the vigour of oppos- 
ing vegetation, demanding the incited endeavours of many labourers to check its 
career: and in proportion to the sterility of the land to be tilled so will the 
necessity be great for the combined co-operation of many labourers, ’in manuring 
and irrigation. 
In either case, and in all situations, we may, therefore, admit the existence of a 
necessity for labour, before that net surplus is periodically obtained, which constitutes 
income or 
revenue, whether the tracts at the free disposal of man be rich, or poor, 
iV flip nmmeon ' 1 * 
extensive, or the reverse. 
From any given extent of ground, it is self-evident tw 4 i 
can be obtained. Between a very small " a ’ 7 Certam net SUrp ' 
must be anoint ; y ™ 1 ’ d an exces sive expenditure of seed, there 
must be a pom, m expend., ure at which the clear surplus realized is greatest. If a 
