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Show 188 OI('fHE RENT OF LAND. [cH. li t~ or less advantageously situa~cd, is called int~ c~;tivation, that rent is ever.patd for the use of It. There is another inference which has been dra ~vn from the theory of rent, 'vhich involves an error of much <>'reater i. .t nportance, and should therefore be b • very carefully guarded agat~st .. In the progress of culttvatton, as poorer and poorer land is taken into tillage, the rate of profits must be limited in amount by the povvers of the soil last cultivated, as ~.,vill be shewn more fully in a subsequent chapter. It has been inferred from this that when land is successively thrown out of ~ultivation, the rate of profits \vill be high in proportion to the superior natural f~rti~ity. of the land vvhich will then be the least fertile 1n cultivation. If land yielded no rent \vhatever in its natural state, whether it were poor oT fertile, and if the relative prices of capital and produce ren1ained the same, then the \vhole produce being divided bet\ veen profits and wages, the inference tnight be ju~t. But the premises are not such as are here supposed. In a ciyilized country uncultivated land always yields a rent . in proportion to its natural power of feeding cattle or growing 'vood ; and of course, \Vhen land has been thro~rn out of tillage, particula1Jy if this has been occasioned by the in1- portation of cheaper corn fron1 other countries, and consequently \Vithout a din1inution of population, *Principles of Political Econony, ch. ii. p. 54. This passage was copied frorn the first edition. It is slightly altered in the second, p. 51. but not so as materially to vary the sense. SEC. V.] OF THE REN:T OF. LAND. 189 the last land so throvvn out tnay yield a moderate rent in pasture, though considera?ly less .than before. As \vas said in the preced1ng section, rent \Vill din1inish, but not so rnuch in proportion eithe~· as the capital en1ployed .on the lat~d, or the p1~ocluce ·derived fro1n it. No landlord will allo\v hts land to be cultivated by a tillage farmer paying little or no rent, ,vhen by laying it do\vn to pasture~ and saving the yearly expenditure of capital upon it, he can obtain a much greater rent. Consequently, as the produce of the worst lands actually cultivated can never be wholly divided between profits and 'vages, and iu the case above supposed, not nearly so, the state of such land or its degree of fertility cannot possibly regulate the rate of profits upon it. If to this circun1stance 've add tl1e effect arising from a rise in the value of money, and the probable fall of corn more than of working cattle, it is obvious that permanent difficulties \vill be thro,vn in the way of cultivation, and that richer land may not yield superior profits. The higher rent paid for the last land employed in tillage, together with the greater expe~se of the materials of capital compared with the price of produce, 1nay fully counterbalance, or even n1ore than counterbalance, the difference of natural fertility. With regard to the capital which the tenant n1ay lay out on his fann in obtaining n1ore produce \Vithout paying additiona-l rent for it, the rate of its returns 1nust obviously conforn1 itself to the general rate of profits. If the prices of n1anufac- . . . . |
