I have seen numerous estates of villages and some districts made waste by such attempts in India.

I have seen land in such estates, which, when unexhausted, yielded, on an average, twelve returns of the seed, without either manure or irrigation, and paid a rent of twenty shillings an acre, become so exhausted by overcropping in a few years as to yield only three or four returns, and unable to pay four shillings an acre--indeed, unable to pay any rent at all.
The cultivator, by degrees, ceases to sow the more exhausting and profitable crops, and is at last obliged to have recourse to manure, or desert his land altogether; but no manure will enable him to get the same quantity of produce as he got before, while what he gets sells at the same rate in the market.

He can, therefore, no longer pay the same rate of rent to Government and its lessee.

He has got a less quantity of produce, and it has cost him much more to raise it, while it continues to sell at the same price in the market.
But when the lands of a whole country, or a large extent of country, deteriorate in the same manner, and all cultivators are obliged to do the same thing, the price of land produce must rise in the markets, so as to pay the additional costs of supply.

All but the poorest and most distant to which these markets must have recourse for supply, at any particular time, will pay rent, and pay it at a rate proportioned to their greater fertility or nearer proximity to the markets.