not merely as much as will afford a large income while in business, but enough to retire from business and live in affluence on realized gains.
In [the United States,] England, and Holland, then, for a long time past, and now in most other countries in Europe, the second requisite of increased production, increase of capital, shows no tendency to become deficient. So far as that element is concerned, production is susceptible of an increase without any assignable bounds. The limitation to production, not consisting in any necessary limit to the increase of the other two elements, labor and capital, must turn upon the properties of the only element which is inherently, and in itself, limited in quantity. It must depend on the properties of land.
Chapter IX. Of The Law Of The Increase Of Production From Land.
§ 1. The Law of Production from the Soil, a Law of Diminishing Return in Proportion to the Increased Application of Labor and Capital.
Land differs from the other elements of production, labor, and capital, in not being susceptible of indefinite increase. Its extent is limited, and