to the share of the commoner sorts. It is in this class of goods that the most remarkable reductions in price have been accomplished in the past, and it is in them, probably, that we shall witness in the future the greatest results of the same kind.”
§ 4. —that tendency from time to time Counteracted by Improvements in Production.
Whether agricultural produce increases in absolute as well as comparative cost of production depends on the conflict of the two antagonist agencies—increase of population and improvement in agricultural skill. In some, perhaps in most, states of society (looking at the whole surface of the earth), both agricultural skill and population are either stationary, or increase very slowly, and the cost of production of food, therefore, is nearly stationary. In a society which is advancing in wealth, population generally increases faster than agricultural skill, and food consequently tends to become more costly; but there are times when a strong impulse sets in toward agricultural improvement. Such an