[155-1] A. Burnes, Reise nach Bukhara, II, 238.
[155-2] W. Maccann, Two Thousand Miles Ride through the Argentine Provinces, London, 1853, I, 20; II, 143. Ausland, 1843, No. 140. Frisian ancient documents in which parcels of land are described as terræ 20 animalium, 48 animalium, etc. Lacomblet, Urkundenbuch, I, 27. Kindlinger, Münster Beitr., I, Urkundenbuch, 24.
[155-3] The custom began to be more usual in Russia also to say "so many dessjatines and the peasantry belonging thereto." This was especially so in the case of very fertile land, as for instance in Orel. See v. Haxthausen, Studien, II, 510. Formerly the bank loaned only 250 per soul, afterwards up to 300 R. Bco. (II, 81). Spite of this v. Haxthausen thinks that rent would be illusory, in Russia, in case agriculture was carried on with hired workmen. (I, Vorrede, XIII.) Carey's remark, "every one is familiar with the fact that farms sell for little more than the value of the improvements," may be true of the United States (The Past, Present and Future, 60.)
[155-4] This condition of things continued in the highlands of Scotland until the suppression of the revolt of 1745. The celebrated Cameron of Lochiel took the field with 800 tenants, although the rent of the land was scarcely £500. (Senior, Three Lectures on the Rate of Wages, 45.) "Poor 12,000 pound sterling per annum nearly subverted the constitution of these kingdoms!" (Pennant.)
INFLUENCE OF ADVANCING CIVILIZATION ON RENT.
Advancing civilization contributes in three different ways to raise rents.[156-1] The growth of population necessitates either a more intensive agriculture (higher farming), or causes it to extend over less fertile parcels of land, or parcels less advantageously situated.[156-2] If the growth of population be attended by an increase of capital, this happens in a still higher degree. The people now consume, if not more, at least wheat of finer quality, more and better fed live stock; the consequence of which is, that the demands made on the land are increased. Lastly, if the population be gradually concentrated in large cities, this fact also must contribute to raise rents, because it requires a multitude of costly transportations of agricultural produce and so increases the cost of production (up to the time of consumption) on the less advantageously situated land.[156-3] [156-4]
As most of the symptoms of a higher civilization become apparent earliest, and in the most striking manner, in large cities, so also a rise in rents is first felt in them. The building of houses may be considered as the most intensive of all cultivation of land and that which is most firmly fixed to the soil.[156-5] Rent has nowhere an unsurpassable maximum any more than a necessary minimum.
[156-1] Jung, Lehrbuch der Cameralpraxis, 1790, 182, has so little idea of this that he is of opinion that farm-rent must grow ever smaller.
[156-2] According to Schmoller, in the Mittheilungen des landwirthschaftlich. Instituts zu Halle, 1865, 112 seq., the average farm-rent of the Prussian domains per morgen, and the population to the square mile, amounted: