are no particular agricultural improvements to be suggested, the enlarged demand must be supplied by cultivating more land; but as this land did not previously pay for cultivation, and as it would not now be cultivated if it did not pay for cultivation, it follows that the value of agricultural produce must rise in order that the farmer may realise an adequate amount of profit. Since land previously untilled is now supposed to be cultivated, the production of wealth, as we have before remarked, is increased in consequence of the greater demand which has taken place for food It is not alone the land thus brought into cultivation which is made more productive, but all the land of the country becomes more productive of wealth; for although there is not a greater quantity of produce raised from it, yet the value of the produce is enhanced by the increased demand for food. All the effects here attributed to an increase of population are strikingly exemplified in the progress of a prosperous colony. No one can doubt that many of the great natural pastures of Australia, which now pay scarcely any rent, will in the course of time be cultivated and rented as valuable agricultural land. Within the last few years the area of cultivation in Australia has rapidly extended. From 1851 to 1861 the population of Victoria increased from 80,000 to 500,000; in 1886 it was more than 1,000,000.[1] The increased quantity of food consumed in Victoria caused more land to be brought into cultivation; the value of agricultural produce must consequently have risen, because land which is in cultivation now would not have repaid its cultivators when the population of Victoria was so very much smaller.
As the value of produce rises, less productive soils are cultivated.Although it has thus been shown that the value of agricultural produce must rise when the demand of a larger population causes more land to be brought under cultivation, yet it will assist the reader, if the primary causes are explained upon which this rise in value depends. Every country possesses land which varies greatly in productiveness. In estimating the productiveness of any particular land it is necessary not only to- ↑ [Since 1886 the population of Victoria has been practically stationary; on March 31, 1901, it was 1,201,341.]
