Food: The raw produce which always affords Rent

¹⁰ Food is always in demand because men, like animals, naturally multiply in proportion to their subsistence.

Food can always command labour, especially the class of labour in the neighborhood that grew it.

But it might not always command a higher class of labour which have much higher wages than the class that produced the food.

¹¹ Agricultural lands produce more food than is needed by the agricultural labour that produces it.

The surplus food is always more than enough to replace the stock employed, with profits.

Therefore, some rent always remains for the landlord.

¹² The uncultivated lands of Norway and Scotland produce some pasture for cattle.

It provides milk and meat which is more than enought to:

• maintain all the labour needed to tend the cattle,
• pay the ordinary profit to owner of the herd,

The rent increases in proportion to the goodness of the pasture.

In time, more cattle are raised and less labour is needed to tend them.

The landlord gains both ways by:

• the increase of the produce, and
• the reduction of the labour which it must maintain.

¹³ The rent of land varies with its fertility and situation.

Land in a town gives a greater rent than land in a distant part of the country.

The distant land may cost the same labour to cultivate, but it must always cost more to bring its produce to the market.

Therefore, more labour must be maintained out of the distant land and its surplus price must be reduced.

But in the distant parts, the profit rate is generally higher than in a large town.

Therefore, a smaller proportion of this reduced surplus must belong to the landlord.

¹⁴ Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers reduce transportation costs.

They put the remote parts of the country more equal with those of the town.

This makes them the greatest of all improvements.

They encourage the cultivation of the remote parts, which makes up most of the country.

They are advantageous to the town by breaking down the monopoly of the nearby countryside.

They are advantageous even to that countryside by opening new markets to its produce, even if they bring in rival commodities.

This rivalry will encourage good management as a form of self defence. 50 years ago, some people near London petitioned the parliament against the extension of the turnpike roads into the remoter counties.

They pretended that those remoter counties which had cheap labour could:

• sell their grass and wheat cheaper in London,
• reduce their rents, and
• ruin their cultivation.

Their rents, however, have risen.

Their cultivation has improved since then.

Wheat Bread Versus Meat

¹⁵ A moderately fertile wheat field produces more food for man than the best pasture of equal size.

Wheat cultivation requires much more labour.

• But the surplus which remains after replacing the seed and maintaining the labour is much greater.

If a pound of meat was never supposed to be worth more than a pound of bread, this greater surplus would bring:

• more profit for the farmer
• more rent to the landlord. [improved 1 meat: 1 bread]

This is universal in the rude beginnings of agriculture.

¹⁶ But the relative values of bread and meat are very different in the different periods of agriculture.

In the rude beginnings, the wild lands are all abandoned to cattle.

• There would be more meat than bread.
• Bread would have the highest price due to high competition.

Ulloa says that 50 years ago at Buenos Aires, an ox was priced at 4 reals or 21 pence halfpenny sterling.

• Oxen cost little more than the labour of catching them.

But everywhere, wheat requires plenty of labour.

Labour in Argentina could not be very cheap because it lies on the Rio de Plata river.

• It is the main artery from the Potosi silver mines in Bolivia to Europe.

In the advanced state of agriculture, there is more bread than meat.

• It raises the price of meat higher than bread.

¹⁷ The expansion of cultivation reduces the wild lands.

• This makes it insufficient to supply the demand for meat.

Much of the cultivated lands must be employed in rearing and fattening cattle.

The price of cattle therefore must be enough to pay:

• the labour for tending them,
• the rent of the landlord, and
• the profit of the farmer for tillage.

The cattle bred on uncultivated land have the same price as those reared on improved land.

The proprietors of uncultivated land profit by cattle.

• They raise their rent with the price of their cattle.

Less than a century ago, meat was cheaper than oatmeal-based bread in the highlands of Scotland.

The union opened the market of England to Scottish cattle.

Their ordinary price is now 3 times that at the beginning of the century.

The rents of many highland estates have tripled or quadrupled.

In Great Britain, 1 pound of the best meat is currently worth more than 2 pounds of the best white bread. [improved 1 meat: 2 bread]