If he is not the proprietor of the field, if he is only a tenant, he pays the proprietor for the productive service of this tool.

The tenant is reimbursed by the purchaser, the latter by another, until the product reaches the consumer; who redeems the first payment, PLUS all the others, by means of which the product has at last come into his hands." Let us lay aside the subsequent payments by which the product reaches the consumer, and, for the present, pay attention only to the first one of all,--the rent paid to the proprietor by the tenant.

On what ground, we ask, is the proprietor entitled to this rent?
According to Ricardo, MacCulloch, and Mill, farm-rent, properly speaking, is simply the EXCESS OF THE PRODUCT OF THE MOST FERTILE LAND OVER THAT OF LANDS OF AN INFERIOR QUALITY; so that farm-rent is not demanded for the former until the increase of population renders necessary the cultivation of the latter.
It is difficult to see any sense in this.

How can a right to the land be based upon a difference in the quality of the land?
How can varieties of soil engender a principle of legislation and politics?
This reasoning is either so subtle, or so stupid, that the more I think of it, the more bewildered I become.

Suppose two pieces of land of equal area; the one, A, capable of supporting ten thousand inhabitants; the other, B, capable of supporting nine thousand only: when, owing to an increase in their number, the inhabitants of A shall be forced to cultivate B, the landed proprietors of A will exact from their tenants in A a rent proportional to the difference between ten and nine.