that the worst of these natural machines gives the
price for the whole; whereas, in a conflict between human machines, all
the products of the worse would be beaten out of the field by those of
the better. It is in dependency upon this law that all those innumerable
proposals for cultivating waste-lands, as in the Scottish Highlands, in
the Irish bogs, &c., are radically vicious; and, instead of creating
plenty, would by their very success impoverish us. For suppose these
lands, which inevitably must have been the lowest in the scale (or else
why so long neglected?) to be brought into tillage--what follows?
Inevitably this: that their products enter the market as the very lowest
on the graduated tariff--_i. e._, as lower than any already cultured.
And these it is--namely, the very lowest by the supposition--that must
give the price for the whole; so that _every_ number on the scale will
rise at once to the level fixed by these lowest soils, so ruinously
(though benevolently) taken up into active and efficient life. If you
add 20,000 quarters of wheat to the amount already in the market, you
_seem_ to have done a service; but, if these 20,000 have been gained at
an extra cost of half-a-crown on each quarter, and if these it is that,
being from the poorest machines, rule the price, then you have added
half-a-crown to every quarter previously in the market.

Meantime, returning to China, it is important to draw attention upon this
point. A new demand for any product of land may happen to be not very large,
and thus may seem not much to affect the markets, or the interests of those
who produce it. But, since the rent doctrine has been developed, it has
become clear that a new demand may affect the producers in two separate
modes: first, in the ordinary known mode; secondly, by happening to call
into activity a lower quality of soil. A very moderate demand, nay, a very
small one, added to that previously existing, if it happens not to fall
within the powers of those numbers already in culture (as, suppose, 1, 2, 3,
4), must necessarily call out No. 5; and so on.

Now, our case, as regards Chinese land in the tea districts, is far beyond
this. Not only has it been large enough to benefit the landholder
enormously, by calling out lower qualities of land, which process again has
stimulated the counteracting agencies in the more careful and scientific
culture of the plant; but also it has been in a positive sense enormous. It
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