The hunter does not employ the thousandth part, the shepherd
not the hundredth part, of those natural advantages which surround
him. The sea, foreign climates and countries, yield him either
none, or at least only an inconsiderable amount of enjoyment,
assistance, or stimulants to exertion.
In the case of a people in a primitive agricultural condition,
a large portion of the existing natural resources lies yet
unutilised, and man still continues limited to his nearest
surroundings. The greater part of the water power and wind power
which exists, or can be obtained, is unemployed; the various
mineral products which the manufacturers so well understand how to
utilise profitably, lie dead; various sorts of fuel are wasted or
regarded (as, for instance, peat turf) as a mere hindrance to
cultivation; stone, sand, and lime are used but little as building
materials; the rivers, instead of being means of freight and
transport for man, or of fertilising the neighbouring fields, are
allowed to devastate the country by floods; warmer climates and the
sea yield to the agricultural country but few of their products.
In fact, in the agricultural State, that power of nature on
which production especially depends, the natural fertility of the
soil, can only be utilised to a smaller extent so long as
agriculture is not supported by manufacturing industry.
Every district in the agricultural State must itself produce as
much of the things necessary to it as it requires to use, for it
can neither effect considerable sales of that which it has in
excess to other districts, nor procure that which it requires from
other districts. A district may be ever so fertile and adapted for
the culture of plants yielding oil, dyeing materials, and fodder,
yet it must plant forests for fuel, because to procure fuel from
distant mountain districts, over wretched country roads, would be
too expensive. Land which if utilised for the cultivation of the
vine and for garden produce could be made to yield three to four
times more returns must be used for cultivating corn and fodder. He
who could most profitably devote himself solely to the breeding of
cattle must also fatten them: on the other hand, he who could most
profitably devote himself merely to fattening stock, must also
carry on cattle breeding. How advantageous it would be to make use
of mineral manures (gypsum, lime, marl), or to burn peat, coal, &c.
instead of wood, and to bring the forest lands under cultivation;
but in such a State there exists no means of transport by means of
which these articles can be conveyed with advantage for more than
very short distances. What rich returns would the meadows in the
valleys yield, if irrigation works on a large scale were
established -- the rivers now merely serve to wash down and carry
away the fertile soil.
Through the establishment of manufacturing power in an
agricultural State, roads are made, railways constructed, canals
excavated, rivers rendered navigable, and lines of steamers
established. By these not merely is the surplus produce of the
agricultural land converted into machinery for yielding income, not
merely are the powers of labour of those who are employed by it
brought into activity, not only is the agricultural population
enabled to obtain from the natural resources which it possesses an
infinitely greater return than before, but all minerals, all
metals, which heretofore were lying idle in the earth are now
rendered useful and valuable. Articles which could formerly only
bear a freight of a few miles, such as salt, coals, stone, marble,
slate, gypsum, lime, timber, bark, &c., can now be distributed over
the surface of an entire kingdom. Hence such articles, formerly
quite valueless, can now assume a degree of importance in the
statistical returns of the national produce, which far surpasses