ABSTRACT
Land has the faculty of transforming and adapting to the use of mankind an infinity of substances. The water of rivers and of the ocean has the power of giving motion to machinery, affords a means of navigation, and supply of fish; it is, therefore, undoubtedly possessed of productive power. The productive power of the soil has no value, unless where its products are objects of demand. Travellers, who have explored the interior of America, and other desert parts of the globe, make repeated mention of tracts of the richest land, capable of every kind of culture, yet wholly destitute of any useful or valuable products. The land is sometimes cultivated by persons possessed of no capital whatever: the proprietor furnishes himself the requisite capital, as well as the land. They are called in France, metayers, and commonly pay to the landlord half the gross product.
