which could before afford no rent. Is it
not however evident, that the person who paid, what he thus calls rent,
paid it in consideration of the valuable commodity which was then
standing on the land, and that he actually repaid himself with a profit,
by the sale of the timber? If, indeed, after the timber was removed, any
compensation were paid to the landlord for the use of the land, for the
purpose of growing timber or any other produce, with a view to future
demand, such compensation might justly be called rent, because it would
be paid for the productive powers of the land; but in the case stated by
Adam Smith, the compensation was paid for the liberty of removing and
selling the timber, and not for the liberty of growing it. He speaks
also of the rent of coal mines, and of stone quarries, to which the same
observation applies--that the compensation given for the mine or quarry,
is paid for the value of the coal or stone which can be removed from
them, and has no connexion with the original and indestructible powers
of the land. This is a distinction of great importance, in an inquiry
concerning rent and profits; for it is found, that the laws which
regulate the progress of rent, are widely different from those which
regulate the progress of profits, and seldom operate in the same
direction. In all improved countries, that which is annually paid to the
landlord, partaking of both characters, rent and profit, is sometimes
kept stationary by the effects of opposing causes, at other times
advances or recedes, as one or other of these causes preponderates. In
the future pages of this work, then, whenever I speak of the rent of
land, I wish to be understood as speaking of that compensation, which is
paid to the owner of land for the use of its original and indestructible
powers.

On the first settling of a country, in which there is an abundance of
rich and fertile land, a very small proportion of which is required to
be cultivated for the support of the actual population, or indeed can be
cultivated with the capital which the population can command, there will
be no rent; for no one would pay for the use of land, when there was an
abundant quantity not yet appropriated, and therefore at the disposal of
whosoever might choose to cultivate it.

On the common principles of supply and demand, no rent could be paid for
such land, for the reason stated, why nothing is given for the use of
air and water, or for any other of