Thomas Nixon Carver

“ Wherever it is true that more land is better than less land, or where one can say, "more land more product, less land less product," there land is a limiting factor and the law of diminishing returns is in operation. ”

“ Even though, as Professor Miller remarks, capital may take the place of land in a growing population, he overlooks one rather important fact, namely, that this substitution of capital for land on a large scale is the accompaniment of a change from agriculture to manufacturing and commerce, and that it applies only within certain limited territories and does not materially affect the problem if we consider the world at large. ”

“ Increasing the number of men working on a given area of agricultural land will not proportionally increase the products. That means a smaller product per man, though it may mean a larger product per acre.
The law of diminishing returns as ordinarily stated is, really, nothing more than a technically specialized statement of the fact that land is a limiting factor in production. A limiting factor is merely a factor upon whose quantity depends, in some degree, the quantity of the product. ”

“ All urbanized populations bring in the products of the soil from regions where soil is abundant, work them over in industries which require much labor and little land, and send them out again to exchange for raw materials, living all the while on the profits of this class of transactions. As these urbanized populations grow, it is necessary to send farther and farther, to wider and wider fields for the products of the soil. Why is this necessary? Why should not England get all her agricultural products from her own area? Merely because of the law of diminishing returns. ”

“ To be sure, the available waste land of the world is not all in use yet, and our increasing urban populations will be able, for many years to come, to thrust their transportation systems out farther and farther in order to secure these products which require land—space—superficial area for their efficient production. ”

“ It will be so easy for us to take these lands that, doubtless, it would be very foolish for us to worry about the land question. Fortunately, we are not the people who have to do the worrying, and doubtless a merciful providence has rendered the people who ought to worry incapable of seeing anything to worry about. ”

“ Land, from the national point of view, does not seem to be a limiting factor in these industries, though occasionally, in the narrower limits of a single city, land becomes scarce even for these purposes. ”

“ Because several million people happen to make a living on Manhattan Island by substituting capital for land, it does not follow that the whole world could do the same, nor would it follow even if two hundred million people could make a living in a similar way within the present boundaries of the United States. ”

“ In the first place, time is an element which may be left out of account. Whether the difficulties inherent in this situation will become acute in a hundred, a thousand or a million years, is not a matter of such importance as the question, are these difficulties inherent? ”

“ Since our growing agricultural population is showing a tendency, as all agricultural populations of the Occident have shown for thousands of years, to spread rather than to remain pent up in their national boundaries, one of three things must happen if our population should continue to increase: (1) We must become more and more a manufacturing and commercial people, depending more and more upon the outside world for our agricultural produce, and joining in the general scramble of the commercial nations for outside markets ”

“ TO the commonly accepted belief that water tends to flow down hill, a certain type of visionary would object that though such a statement might be true as an abstract principle, dissociated from the real world of human achievement, yet it is not true as a matter of actual economic fact because men have invented pumps and pipes which make water flow up hill. ”

“ We could, to be sure, if we chose to do so, consume more of those crops which respond to intensive culture, such as corn, potatoes, bananas, etc., and less of those which yield their best results under extensive culture, such as wheat, beef, etc. ”

“ Similarly, the civilized races of to-day may be at ease in Zion, their temporal salvation being assured, since South America and Africa lie open before them. But certain other races already in possession of those alluring Canaans may well be on the anxious seat, for their temporal damnation is imminent. ”

“ In the second place, while we may not have any immediate cause for alarm, certain other people have, though that may not be our concern. The people of western Europe may not have had any cause for alarm in the days of Malthus, for the whole American continent lay before them. ”