Inland Transit, the Practicability, Utility, and Benefit of Railroads - Softcover

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1834. Excerpt: ... soil is greater than that of manufactures. If 200 quarters of corn be necessary to raise 400, and 100 more be required to bring the 400 to market, then the net surplus will be 100. But if by the use of steam-carriages the same quantity can be brought to market with an expenditure of 50 quarters, then the net surplus will be increased from 100 to 150 quarters profit; and either the profit of the farmer, or the rent of the landlord, must be increased by the same amount; the same applies to cattle, &c. But the agriculturist would not merely be benefited by an increased return from the soil already under cultivation. Any reduction in the cost of transporting the produce to market would call into cultivation tracts of inferior fertility, and uncultivated land, the returns from which would not at present repay the cost of cultivation and transport of manure. Thus land would become productive which is now waste, and an effect would be produced equivalent to adding so much fertile soil to the present extent of the country. It is well known that land of a given degree of fertility will yield increased produce by the increased application of capital manure and labour. By a reduction in the cost of transport, a saving will be made which may enable the agriculturist to apply to tracts already under cultivation the capital thus saved, and thereby increase their actual production. Not only, therefore, would such an effect be attended with an increased extent of cultivated land, but also with an increased degree of cultivation in that which is already productive; and manual labour would be extended, and the poor and county rates reduced. It has been said that in Great Britain there are above a million of horses engaged in various ways in the transport of passengers and ...