years, by far the greater part
is supposed to have been generated on the soil, and not to have been
brought from commerce or manufactures. And it was unquestionably the
high profits of agricultural stock, occasioned by improvements in the
modes of agriculture, and by the constant rise of prices, followed only
slowly by a proportionate rise in the different branches of capital,
that afforded the means of so rapid and so advantageous an accumulation.

In this case cultivation has been extended, and rents have risen,
although one of the instruments of production, capital, has been dearer.

In the same manner a fall of profits and improvements in agriculture, or
even one of them separately, might raise rents, notwithstanding a rise
of wages.

It may be laid down then as a general truth, that rents naturally rise
as the difference between the price of produce and the cost of the
instruments of production increases.

It is further evident, that no fresh land can be taken into cultivation
till rents have risen, or would allow of a rise upon what is already
cultivated.

Land of an inferior quality requires a great quantity of capital to make
it yield a given produce; and, if the actual price of this produce be
not such as fully to compensate the cost of production, including the
existing rate of profits, the land must remain uncultivated. It matters
not whether this compensation is effected by an increase in the money
price of raw produce, without a proportionate increase in the money
price of the instruments of production, or by a decrease in the price of
the instruments of production, without a proportionate decrease in the
price of produce. What is absolutely necessary, is a greater relative
cheapness of the instruments of production, to make up for the quantity
of them required to obtain a given produce from poor land.

But whenever, by the operation of one or more of the causes before
mentioned, the instruments of production become cheaper, and the
difference between the price of produce and the expenses of cultivation
increases, rents naturally rise. It follows therefore as a direct and
necessary consequence, that it can never answer to take fresh land of a
poorer quality into cultivation, till rents have risen or would allow of
a rise, on what is already cultivated.

It is equally true, that without the same tendency to a rise of rents,
occasioned by the operation of the same causes, it cannot answer to
lay out f