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esources, or in other words, the formation of capital, is indispensable. The primitive cultivators of the soil, whether those of ancient times or the pioneers who formed settlements in the forests of the New World, soon discovered that their labour would be rendered more effective by implements and auxiliary powers of various kinds, and that until the produce from existing means of cultivation exceeded what was necessary for their subsistence, there could be neither labour on their part to produce such implements and auxiliaries, nor means to purchase them. Every branch of industry has thus had a demand for capital within its own circles from the earliest times. The flint arrow-heads, the stone and bronze utensils of fossiliferous origin, and the rude implements of agriculture, war and navigation, of which we read in Homer, were the forerunners of that rich and wonderful display of tools, machines, engines, furnaces and countless ingenious and costly appliances, which represent so large a portion of the capital of civilized countries, and without the pre-existing capital could not have been developed. Nor in the cultivation of land, or the production simply of food, is the need of implements, and of other auxiliary power, whether animal or mechanical, the only need immediately experienced. The demands on the surplus of produce over consumption are various and incessant. Near the space of reclaimed ground, from which the cultivator derives but a bare livelihood, are some marshy acres that, if drained and enclosed, would add considerably in two or three years to the produce; the forest and other natural obstructions might also be driven farther back with the result, in a few more years, of profit; fences are necessary to allow of pasture and field crops, roads have to be made and farm buildings to be erected; as the work proceeds more artificial investments follow, and by these successive outlays of past savings in improvements, renewed and enhanced from generation to generation, the land, of little value in its natural state either to the owner and cultivator or the community, is at length brought into a highly productive condition. The history of capital in the soil is substantially the history of capital in all other spheres. No progress can be made in any sphere, small or large, without reserved funds possessed by few or more persons, in small or large amounts, and the progress in all cases is adventured under self-depr
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