Daily American telegraph., 1852-05-03

ond, quadruple for the third, and 50 on---the
former growing by multiplication, the latter by
addition only, as the geometrical to the arith-
metical ratio-in figures, human life us /, 2, A, |
8, 49, 80, GA, 1913, at the successive quarters
Of two centuries but food only as /, 2, 3, "A, 5,
| 6, 7, 8, in the same time. In this calculation
Mr.. Malthus is supported, at least in the idea
and principle of it. by host of the book
makers and theorists of the science of Political
Economy. Ricardo, who is at the head OF the
school, puts it into the foundation of his sys-
tenn, and McCulloch states it in these words
with which they all sufficiently agree: From
the operation of fixed and permanent causes,
the increasing sterility of the soil is sure in the
long run, to overmatch the improvements that
occur in machinery and griculture-there are
limits, and those not very remote, to the boun-
ty Of nature in agriculture--it is impossible to
apply capital indefinitely; even to the best soils,
without obtaining from them Il constantly di-
niinishing rate of profit" Manufactures, ho
says, expand without limitation to their pro
duct, thus corresponding to the rate Of increase
4 Of population by the free play Of the natural
4
and essential bounties of the earth.
Carlyle was right in calling political econo-
my the dismal science.
1t has been answered, that the fertility of
the vegetable and animal life which constitutes
the food of man is capable of a multiplication
at per centage upon the principal almost be-
yond calculation greater than the highest
possible increase of the human kind. Corn,
or, as we say, grain,s produces " some thirty,
some sixty, some an hundred fold" every year,
and roots and fruits serving for food with equal
abundance; sheep and oxen increase i'll the
geometrical ratio as well as mankind they
are more prolific, and begin earlier in life
Poultry, for instance, could multiply themselves
a million of times in the period of twenty-five
years, in which the human race doubles itself
but once So that the difference and dscrep-
ancy instead of being against the interests Of
human life, are entirely the other way-that is
to say, subsistence is capable of more rapid
increase than are the human beings that de-
pend upon it.
The supposed constant decrease-of tho pro
ductyeness of the land, which it is further sup
posed no improvement in science and cultiva-
ton can entirely obviate, rests upon still an
other assumption, to wit: that in the CON-
mencement of cultivation, when population is
small and land abundant the best soils, those
capable of yielding large return to labor,
} alone are cultivated, and that in the progress
of population land becomes less abundant, and
there arises a necessity for cultivating those
yielding smaller return and SO on, in IL con-
tinually declining series, until the use of the
poorest and worst is at last compelled, by the
increasing necessities of the growing population.
There arises out of this assumption the further
consequences that labor and capital must re-
ceive continually less and less returns for their
investment; that rent must rise and wages de-
cline, and all in the increase ratio of the grow
ing human necessities, until all proportion
ceases, and men must destroy each other, if
the mature result were not prevented 10y those
ills which anticipate and graduate the mischief
by means of wars famines and pestilences,
happening in good time to keep things toler-
ably even and evenly tolerable.
The heavy end of the whole argument rests,
it will be perceived, upon the notion that in
the earliest stages of civilization when the land
is open to free choice men cultivate the better
and best soils only, and leave the poorer till
necessity presses them into use. This, if fact
is not quite answered by the argument of the
anti -Malthusians-if false, the whole black
cloud of threatened ruin is swept out of the
perspective.
1t is utterly false and foundatonleSs; and for
the demonstration and the consequent relief we
are indebted to our countryman, Henry c. Carey
The chapter entitled Man dnd Land, in his
"PAsT PRESENT, AND FUTURE" first published
in 1s4s, refutes the allegation, and overturns
all the consequences dependent upon it, with
conclusiveness that has scarcely parallel in
controversial science We cannot supply, by
any sketch of ours, the variety and amplitude
of the evidence and reasoning which enters
into his mastery demonstration. We can but
say, that in his researches for the facts which
bear upon the point, he travorses the settle
mcnt Of Pennsylvania, beginning at Philadcl-
phia, noting the history of every mile IN the
survey till the northern and western bound
aries are reached; thence taking larger strides,
he surveys the Northern and Western States
in their turn, the Southern and Eastern, and
those of New England and finds, in every in
stance, that the early settlers avoid the richer,
heavier timbered lands, and settle upon the
thin, light timbered, and easily subdued soils OF
the hill sides and at the heads OF streams m
variably leaving the moist soils which demand
| du,;,;o,.o ,,J thn brayy bottoms with thCu