200

POLITICAL  ECONOMY

occupied  plots  from  making  any  appreciable
charge  for  them.  In  the  absence  of  combination ­
  on  the  part  of  landowners,  no
landowner  could  exact  a  rent  larger  than  that
which  would  induce  the  possessor  of  vacant
land  to  let  it.
Next  let  us  modify  the  premisses  from  which
this  result  is  deduced.  Let  population  grow,
and  let  it  finally  reach  such  a  figure  that  the
whole  soil  of  quality  A  is  absorbed  in  farms,
and,  in  addition,  recourse  must  be  had  to  some
of  the  soil  of  quality  B.  These  conditions
having  appeared,  the  land  of  the  higher
quality  will  begin  to  bear  a  rent,  and  the  rent
will  tend  to  amount  to  10  bushels  an  acre,
that  is,  the  difference  between  the  yield  of
the  best  land,  60  bushels  an  acre,  and  the
yield  of  the  second  best,  50  bushels  an  acre.
For  the  farm  land  endowed  by  nature  in  the
lesser  degree  no  payment  can  be  effectively
demanded,  for  reasons  which  have  already  been
advanced  to  prove  that  in  the  circumstances
first  imagined  no  rent  at  all  would  be  paid.
Were  the  owners  of  inferior  fields  to  insist  on
payment  for  their  use,  farmers  would  substitute ­
  for  them  land  still  unoccupied.  But
rent  would  be  paid  for  land  of  higher  fertility,
because  no  land  of  this  fertility  remains
unoccupied.  Now,  if  other  land  is  to  be  substi-