ays will lead to
a continuous increase of profit. There are examples before our eyes
where capital has been unsparingly employed, and upon very large
areas of land, with most disappointing results. In one such instance
five or six farms were thrown into one; straw, and manure, and every
aid lavishly used, till a fabulous number of sheep and other stock
was kept; but the experiment failed. Many of the farms were again
made separate holdings, and grass laid down in the place of glowing
cornfields. Then there is another instance, where a gentleman of
large means and a cultivated and business mind, called in the
assistance of the deep plough, and by dint of sheer subsoil
ploughing grew corn profitably several years in succession. But
after a while he began to pause, and to turn his attention to stock
and other aids. It is not for one moment contended that the use of
artificial manure, of the deep plough, of artificial food, and other
improvements will not increase the yield, and so the profit of the
agriculturist. It is obvious that they do so. The question is, Will
they do so to an extent sufficient to repay the outlay? And,
further, will they do so sufficiently to enable the agriculturist to
meet the ever-increasing weight which presses on him? It would seem
open to doubt. One thing appears to have been left quite out of
sight by those gentlemen who are so enthusiastic about compensation
for unexhausted improvements, and that is, if the landlord is to be
bound down so rigidly, and if the tenant really is going to make so
large a profit, most assuredly the rents will rise very
considerably. How then? Neither the sewage system, nor the deep
plough, nor the artificial manure has, as yet, succeeded in
overcoming the _vis inertiae_ of the idle earth. They cause an
increase in the yield of the one revolution of the agriculturist
machine per annum; but they do not cause the machine to revolve
twice or three times. Without a decrease in the length of this
enforced idleness any very great increase of profit does not seem
possible. What would any manufacturer think of a business in which
he was compelled to let his engines rest for a third of the year?
Would he be eager to sink his capital in such an enterprise?

The practical man will, of course, exclaim that all this is very
true, but Nature is Nature, and must have its way, and it is useless
to expect more than one crop per annum, and any talk of three or
four crops is perfect