SECTION CLVII.. History of Rent.--Improvements in the Art of Agriculture.

HISTORY OF RENT.--IMPROVEMENTS IN THE ART OF AGRICULTURE.

Improvements in the art of agriculture which are confined to individual husbandmen leave rent unaffected. They do not perceptibly lower the price of agricultural products, and only effect an increase of the reward of enterprise which is entirely personal to the more skillful producers and does not attach to the ground itself.

But how is it when these improvements become general throughout the country? If population and consumption remain unchanged, the supply of agricultural products will exceed the demand. This would compel farmers, if there be no avenue open to exports, to curtail their production. The least fertile and most disadvantageously situated parcels of land will be abandoned to a greater or less extent, and the least productive capital devoted to agriculture, withdrawn. In this way, rent goes down both relatively and absolutely, although the owners of land may be able to partially cover their loss by the gain which results to them as consumers and capitalists.[157-1] (§ 186). After a time, however, and as a consequence of the diminished price of corn, population and consumption will increase, and entail an extension of agriculture and a consequent rise in rents.[157-2] If it, relatively speaking, reaches the same point as before, it still is absolutely much greater than before. Let us suppose that there are three classes of land of equal extent in a country, which for an equal outlay of capital produce 100,000, 80,000 and 70,000 bushels yearly. The rent of the land here would be equal to at least 40,000 bushels. If the yield of production now doubles, while the demand for agricultural products also doubles, the aggregate harvest will be 200,000 + 160,000 + 140,000 bushels, and consequently rent will have risen to at least 80,000 bushels. But this increase of rent has injured no one. If the population increases in a less degree than the productiveness of the land, the consumer may, to a certain extent, gain largely, and the landowner better his condition. However, great agricultural improvements spread so gradually over a country, that, as a rule, the demand for agricultural products can keep pace with the increased supply. But even in this case, that transitory absolute decline of rent may be avoided; and it cannot be claimed universally, as it is by many who are satisfied with mumbling Ricardo's words after him, that an increase of rent is possible only by an enhancement of the price of the products of the soil. Where the development of a people's economy is a normal one, the rent of land is wont to increase gradually, but at the same time to constitute a diminishing quota of the entire national income.[157-3]

Improvements in milling,[157-4] and in the instruments of transportation[157-5] adapted to agricultural products, and the introduction of cheaper[157-6] food, have the same effect as improvements of agricultural production. All such steps in advance render an increase in population, or in the nation's resources, possible without any corresponding increase in the amount paid to landowners as tribute money.[157-7]

The foregoing facts furnish us the data necessary to decide what influence permanent soil improvements have on the rent of land.[157-8] The improved parcels of land now grow more fertile. Their rentability also increases, while that of the others becomes not only relatively but absolutely less, if the demand remains unaltered. The whole is as if capital had been transformed into fertile land, and this added to the improved land.

There is great importance attached in England to the difference between those agricultural reforms which save land and those which effect a saving in capital and labor. The latter, it is said, decrease the money rent of the landowner by depreciating the price of corn, but leave the corn-rent unaltered. The former, on the other hand, decrease the rent both in money and corn, but the money rent in a higher degree. (Ricardo, Principles, ch. 2; J. S. Mill, Principles, IV, ch. 3, 4.)]

In 1835, of 552 mill. francs moveable property and 984 " immoveable. In 1853, of 820 " francs moveable property and 1,176 " immoveable. In 1860, of 1,179 " francs moveable property and 1,545 " immoveable.

so that the preponderance of immoveable property constituted a converging series of 78, 43, and 31 per cent. (Parieu.) In North America, with its great unoccupied territory, the reverse is the case. The census of 1850 gave a moveable property of 36 per cent.; that of 1860 of only 30 per cent. According to Dubost, the rent of land in Algeria was 80 per cent., a gross product of only 10-15 francs per hectare; in Corsica, 66 per cent., a gross yield of from 30-35 per cent.; in the Department du Nord, 17.5-24 per cent., a gross yield of from 500-740 francs. (Journal des Economistes, Juin, 1870, 336 ff.)]