1831.] 
Of the Evolution of Rent , (§~c. 
315 
make use of them : and it has consequently become the common opinion that, in 
agriculture, nature does no more, nay even less, towards enrichment, than the 
effects in every other branch of production. But even on these grounds, the attempt 
to impugn the superior productiveness of agriculture over all other employment 
of capital is futile ; for air and water, wind and sun, are labouring as unremittingly 
in agriculture, as they can be in dying, in bleaching, or in any other processes 
wherein the action of the elements is made use of ; labouring too in the process 
in co-operation with a power which is completely lost sight ot, that of reproduc- 
tion and increase, while in all other processes which can be imagined, the elements 
are labouring solely in the work of modification.- Were there no increase effected 
of similar products to those consumed during production, coulcl we have any in- 
crease of products after their kind ? and without this how could we count on 
next year’s income, being like in nature to that of the last ? How then can it be 
for a moment supposed, that the power of modification, the power of obtaining one 
set of products differing in their nature, by the destruction of another set, can be a 
source of wealth, and periodical increase, except in subordination to that lepro- 
ductive and incremental influence, by which alone, year by year, a like income is 
evolved, sufficient for the support of all classes ? 
As then it appears, that the rate of net proceeds realized, beyond xvbatis expended 
in production in agriculture, must always be beyond, and in most cases greatly 
beyond what we are in the habit of considering the average rate of profit of the day 7 ; 
and that the difference between the two goes, where society is properly 7 constituted, 
to the use of the landlord, under the denomination of rent; and as it also appears, 
that wherever the reproductive principle has had direct influence on the crea- 
tion of income, the rate of net return must have been high ; it follows that rent, 
*o such a state of society, must always be obtained for the use which is made of the 
land; it is at the same time true, that, in the earlier stages of society, as there 
would be but few accumulations of capital, and but few manufacturing esta- 
blishments, there could hardly be possessed a criterion by which to form a judg- 
ment of the difference between the return actually realized by a certain expendi- 
ble on the land, and the return actually realized from a similar expendituie 
in other branches of production; and, as, at the same time, it is piobable, 
that those who then actually tilled the ground, with a view 7 to raising thereby 
a subsistence, were in possession of what merely served to keep them in being, 
tbe existence of rent, as a separate income for the support of a sepaiate 
c lass of proprietors, could not be known : still, however, it is clear, that its 
elements were there, ready to show themselves whenever the land should be so 
a PPOrtioned to individuals, as to form considerable estates : and as soon as the in- 
case of wrought products, and of luxury, put it in the power of the proprietors of 
^ ese estates, to lavish the produce of hundreds and thousands of acres, on their 
0Wn personal gratification. When also a manufacturing class has sprung into 
existence, living on such of the produce of agriculture as is hey r ond the consumption 
those necessarily engaged in its production ; and when the accumulation and 
appropriation of capital in every branch of business has enabled mankind to ascei 
ta in what the average rate of gains in these various occupations may be, then the 
Se paration of rent from the profits of business proceeds ; and then it comes to pass, 
Ibat the farmer’s gains on his yearly expenditure, are forced to accommodate them 
^Ives to the rate obtained by all other producers, and that the lents of the land 
)l( l are raised with every fall in these rates of profits. Then also it is, that 
tie value of real estate comes to be estimated, by a comparison of what so 
capital, as must be paid in their purchase, might tealize in txade, or 
