– – – – – the improvement of soils by manuring, irrigation, &c.; – – – – – the improvement of implements of husbandry; – – – – – the improvement of breeds of live stock. Large capitals also provide for the prevention of famine, by furnishing a variety of food; and for the regular supply of the market, by enabling capitalists to wait for their returns. Large capitals, therefore, are preferable to an equal aggregate amount of small capitals, for two reasons, viz.: they occasion a large production in proportion; and they promote, by means peculiar to themselves, the general safety and convenience. Capitals may, however, be too large. They are so when they become disproportioned to the managing power. The interest of capitalists best determines the extent of capital; and any interference of the law is, therefore, unnecessary. The interference of the law is injurious; as may be seen by the tendency of the law of Succession in France to divide properties too far, and of the law of Primogeniture in England to consolidate them too extensively. The increase of agricultural capital provides a fund for the employment of manufacturing and commercial, as well as agricultural, labour. The interests of the manufacturing and agricultural classes are therefore not opposed to each other, but closely allied. -------------- The same principle applies, of course, in all cases where an extensive production is the object, and points out the utility of associations of capitalists for many of the higher aims of human industry. A union of capitals is perhaps as excellent an expedient as a division of labour, and will probably be universally so considered ere long. If it be an advantageous agreement for six cabinet-makers that two should saw the wood for a table, and one square it, and another turn the legs, and a fifth put it together, and the sixth polish it, one set instead of six of each kind of tool being made to suffice, it is no less obvious that six owners of so many fields will also gain by uniting their forces,—by making one set of farm-buildings suffice, by using fewer and better implements, and securing a wider range for a variety of crops and for the management of their live stock. In like manner, twenty fishermen, instead of having twenty cockle-shell boats among them, in which no one can weather a stormy night, may find prodigious gain in giving up their little boats for one or two substantial vessels, in which they may make a wide excursion, and bring home an ample prey to divide among them. This is the principle of mining associations, and of fishing and commercial companies; and it might ere this have become the principle of all extensive undertakings for purposes of production, if some of the evils which crowd round the early operations of good principles had not been in their usual punctual attendance. Such associations have led to monopoly, and have been