resh capital in the improvement of old land--at least upon the
supposition, that each farm is already furnished with as much capital as
can be laid out to advantage, according to the actual rate of profits.

It is only necessary to state this proposition to make its truth appear.
It certainly may happen, and I fear it happens frequently, that farmers
are not provided with all the capital which could be employed upon their
farms, at the actual rate of agricultural profits. But supposing they
are so provided, it implies distinctly, that more could not be applied
without loss, till, by the operation of one or more of the causes above
enumerated, rents had tended to rise.

It appears then, that the power of extending cultivation and increasing
produce, both by the cultivation of fresh land and the improvement of
the old, depends entirely upon the existence of such prices, compared
with the expense of production, as would raise rents in the actual state
of cultivation.

But though cultivation cannot be extended, and the produce of the
country increased, but in such a state of things as would allow of a
rise of rents, yet it is of importance to remark, that this rise of
rents will be by no means in proportion to the extension of cultivation,
or the increase of produce. Every relative fall in the price of the
instruments of production, may allow of the employment of a considerable
quantity of additional capital; and when either new land is taken
into cultivation, or the old improved, the increase of produce may
be considerable, though the increase of rents be trifling. We see, in
consequence, that in the progress of a country towards a high state of
cultivation, the quantity of capital employed upon the land, and
the quantity of produce yielded by it, bears a constantly increasing
proportion to the amount of rents, unless counterbalanced by
extraordinary improvements in the modes of cultivation. [11]

According to the returns lately made to the Board of Agriculture, the
average proportion which rent bears to the value of the whole produce,
seems not to exceed one fifth; [12] whereas formerly, when there was
less capital employed, and less value produced, the proportion amounted
to one fourth, one third, or even two fifths. Still, however, the
numerical difference between the price of produce and the expenses of
cultivation, increases with the progress of improvement; and though the
landlord has a less share of the whole pro