and of Periodical Increase . 
77 
1831 .] 
very small quantity of seed be employed ; a net return, small in some proportion, 
must be the result ; and in an excessive employment of seed, a part will not be able 
to germinate from want of space ; while all the plants, by interfering with each 
other, during the course of their developement, will be prevented coming to full 
growth and maturity. There is, therefore, one particular point at which the relations 
of outlay, and net return in seed, are most advantageous to man, and yield him the 
greatest net reproduction ; and man must be intensely interested, that these relations 
should shortly be practically established, stimulated, as he is, to a constant increase 
of numbers. 
The same remark holds with regard to the application of labour on any given 
extent of ground. The labour of one man being incapable of fitting, say 20 acres, 
for the peculiar growth and fullest developement of useful germs; while the appli- 
cation of 100 men to the same extent, might produce no effect commensurate to 
feeding and rewarding with an income, so many labourers as a hundred. 
Twenty men might, however, force from the soil such a net surplus as rewarded 
each with a maintenance, while to the labour of twenty-one a less proportionate 
return would be secured. If then we proceed with the supposition, that so large a 
net reproduction as twenty labourers obtain from this tract, is absolutely essential 
to the existence of each of these twenty; and if we suppose, further, that the net pro- 
duce tailing to the share of each of the twenty-one, is short of this quantity, we find 
that there is a limit to the number who could be fed by the net produce of that ex- 
tent of country, and consequently to the number which could be permanently em- 
ployed upon it; and as population must come up to the means of subsistence, ob- 
tainable by the employment of labour ; we see, on the other hand, why fewer than 
this number will not permanently be found occupying this tract. 
In productive expenditure, therefore, in either seed, or labour, there is a point 
which man is interested in reaching ; and which must be reached : an expenditure, 
too, which he cannot, even if he would, continue to exceed ; for if more seed be 
thrown into the ground than can come to maturity; the means of existence are 
taken from all who otherwise might have consumed it as food ; and from those who 
would otherwise have enjoyed that of which the growth has been interfered with ; 
and thus a reduction of the means of subsistence, and consequently of population, 
follows the excessive employment of seed, while the diminution of the share of 
nourishment falling to the lot of each of the persons labouring, and consequent 
starvation of the whole, immediately threatens, where industry is employed in 
excess. 
Conceiving it then to be undeniable, that man’s original wealth is only obtainable 
as the recompence of so much labour as the naked savage must bestow in over- 
coming the mighty obstacles opposed to him by nature ; and that, during the pro- 
gress of an increasing population, as each individual comes to maturity, he brings 
to the society so much labour as serves for his own support ; and taking into con- 
sideration the inevitable progress of population and wealth, till that extent be 
reached in productive expenditure, which we have pointed out above ; it must be 
granted, that the wealth of each period, will have been pressing against the limits, 
which the population and knowledge of productive arts possessed by that population, 
actually did prescribe ; and that after wealth and population have reached the limit 
to production marked by the physical circumstances of the country, they can, neithe r 
of them, be found permanently greater or less in amount than what they hold, so 
long as the productive circumstances of the country remain unchanged. 
It has been assumed by many reasoners, that when population is scanty, none 
but fertile spots are under cultivation, and that a great proportional return is ia 
