s, without driving them from the
lands. The lessee may sustain the whole burthen for one or two years;
but if the officers of Government attempt to make him sustain it
longer, they drive him after his cultivators, and the land is left
waste. I have seen numerous estates of villages and some districts
made waste by such attempts in India. I have seen land in such
estates, which, when unexhausted, yielded, on an average, twelve
returns of the seed, without either manure or irrigation, and paid a
rent of twenty shillings an acre, become so exhausted by overcropping
in a few years as to yield only three or four returns, and unable to
pay four shillings an acre--indeed, unable to pay any rent at all.
The cultivator, by degrees, ceases to sow the more exhausting and
profitable crops, and is at last obliged to have recourse to manure,
or desert his land altogether; but no manure will enable him to get
the same quantity of produce as he got before, while what he gets
sells at the same rate in the market. He can, therefore, no longer
pay the same rate of rent to Government and its lessee. He has got a
less quantity of produce, and it has cost him much more to raise it,
while it continues to sell at the same price in the market.

But when the lands of a whole country, or a large extent of country,
deteriorate in the same manner, and all cultivators are obliged to do
the same thing, the price of land produce must rise in the markets,
so as to pay the additional costs of supply. All but the poorest and
most distant to which these markets must have recourse for supply, at
any particular time, will pay rent, and pay it at a rate proportioned
to their greater fertility or nearer proximity to the markets. Such
Markets must pay for land produce a price sufficient to cover the
costs of producing and bringing it from the poorest and most distant
lands, to which they are obliged at any particular time to have
recourse for supply. All land produce of the same quality must, at
the same time and place, sell in the market at the same price; and
all that is over and above the cost of producing and bringing it to
market will go to the proprietors of the land, that is, to the
Government and its lessees. The poorest and most distant land, to
which any market may have recourse at any particular time, may pay no
rent, because the price is no more than sufficient to pay the cost of
producing and bringing their supply to that market; but all that is