n quantity of corn, he may
be equally well fed, clothed, and lodged, and population may be equally
encouraged, although the wages of labour may not rise so high in
proportion as the price of produce.

And even when the price of labour does really rise in proportion to the
price of produce, which is a very rare case, and can only happen when
the demand for labour precedes, or is at least quite contemporary with
the demand for produce; it is so impossible that all the other outgoings
in which capital is expended, should rise precisely in the same
proportion, and at the same time, such as compositions for tithes,
parish rates, taxes, manure, and the fixed capital accumulated under the
former low prices, that a period of some continuance can scarcely fail
to occur, when the difference between the price of produce and the cost
of production is increased.

In some of these cases, the increase in the price of agricultural
produce, compared with the cost of the instruments of production,
appears from what has been said to be only temporary; and in these
instances it will often give a considerable stimulus to cultivation, by
an increase of agricultural profits, without showing itself much in
the shape of rent. It hardly ever fails, however, to increase rent
ultimately. The increased capital, which is employed in consequence of
the opportunity of making great temporary profits, can seldom if ever be
entirely removed from the land, at the expiration of the current leases;
and, on the renewal of these leases, the landlord feels the benefit of
it in the increase of his rents.

Whenever then, by the operation of the four causes above mentioned, the
difference between the price of produce and the cost of the instruments
of production increases, the rents of land will rise.

It is, however, not necessary that all these four causes should
operate at the same time; it is only necessary that the difference here
mentioned should increase. If, for instance, the price of produce were
to rise, while the wages of labour, and the price of the other branches
of capital did not rise in proportion, and at the same time improved
modes of agriculture were coming into general use, it is evident that
this difference might be increased, although the profits of agricultural
stock were not only undiminished, but were to rise decidedly higher.

Of the great additional quantity of capital employed upon the land in
this country, during the last twenty