ns.

_How an Unnatural Distribution of Population may be Treated._--So long
as the slow movement of population from country to country remains
incomplete, the ultimate division of occupations between the countries
can never be completely static. It is therefore with a division that
is only approximately static that we have first to deal, and this is
realized _when in view of the comparative density of population in the
different regions which now exists_ occupations are naturally
apportioned.

The base line _AD_ of this figure stands for the part of the world in
which economic law works rapidly and encounters comparatively few
obstructions; and the extension of the line represents the lands
outside of this region in which the laws are sluggish in their action.
It is as though this base line were a section of a vast surface
including both civilized and primitive states. _AB_ represents the
smallest population per unit of land of a given quality within the
central area, and _DC_ represents the largest, while the ascending
line _BC_ shows the gradations of essential density in the peopling of
different parts of it. At the point A the pressure of the population
on the resources of the soil is least, while at the point _D_ it is at
its greatest. At the point _A_ a man can get much out of the soil as
the return for his own bare labor, while at _D_ he can get
comparatively little; and at intervening points on the base a man gets
more than he does at _D_ and less than he does at _A_. His gains
measured in bushels of wheat, etc., vary inversely as the density of
the population and so decrease from the left of the figure toward the
right till the point _D_ is reached. The occupations of the different
localities are determined by these facts.

[Illustration]

_How Occupations vary with Differences of Land Crowding._--Crowding
the arable land causes labor to flow naturally to manufacturing
occupations, since in these it is not so greatly handicapped in
comparison with the labor of more sparsely peopled regions. In a
cotton mill in Manchester a man may contribute as many yards per day
toward the product of the mill as he would in a mill in Fall River;
but on an English farm one man's labor does not create as much
produce as it does on an American farm. The large amount of available
land per man in America has a great effect on the amount that a man
can produce by tilling it, but it has very little effect on the amount
of the c