If it happens that there be one which
does not cultivate it, it is because, even to itself, such cultivation
is not useful. Analogy will show us, that under the influences of an
unshackled trade, notwithstanding similar differences, wheat would be
produced in every portion of the world; and if any nation were induced
to entirely abandon the cultivation of it, this would only be because
it would _be her interest_ to otherwise employ her lands, her capital,
and her labor. And why does not the fertility of one department
paralyze the agriculture of a neighboring and less favored one?
Because the phenomena of political economy have a suppleness, an
elasticity, and, so to speak, _a self-levelling power_, which seems to
escape the attention of the school of protectionists. They accuse us
of being theoretic, but it is themselves who are so to a supreme
degree, if the being theoretic consists in building up systems upon
the experience of a single fact, instead of profiting by the
experience of a series of facts. In the above example, it is the
difference in the value of lands which compensates for the difference
in their fertility.
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