The Relation between the Value of Land and Labor
A passing observation: individual men come by land in a variety of ways, but the title a nation has over land is invariably founded on violence or conquest.
A proprietor of land must put it to use to provide for himself and his household. He may seek to profit by his land by working it to produce a bounty beyond his sustenance.
He may also employ the help of others to work the land to add to its product, but in this instance the estate becomes like a village, the members of which must produce first for their own sustenance, then for any conveniences, and above that for the profit of the estate.
In the authors time, slavery was practiced, such that an estate must sustain its population of slaves, as well as overseers employed to train them and coordinate their labor. The labor of slaves is not free, insofar as the slaves themselves must be sustained by their output, and if the salve population is to be sustainable, for the children and non-laboring among them. As an estimate, this means each slave must produce double the amount to sustain himself before any additional measure exists for profit.
The situation is little different if the proprietor employ free peasants, though they generally command a higher wage and are more productive, they must still be paid enough (from the profit of the estate) to sustain themselves and their families.
By the author's computations the meanest peasant may sustain himself buy as little as an acre and a half of land if he lives a very hardscrabble existence, and as many as 4 to 10 acres if he is to have a moderately comfortable lifestyle (wine, meat, woolen clothing, etc., without gluttony or excess).
There is quite some fluctuation here depending on the way in which the land is used. Consider that the hunter-gatherer tribesmen of the Iroquois require 50 to 100 acres of land per member of their tribe. Meanwhile the efficiency of rice production in China is such that one acre can sustain ten peasants.
The value of the laborer is derived from the product of his labor, which derives in turn from his own skill as well as the productivity of land. As such if two men of equal skill have a disparity in wages, it can fairly be said that the difference is the result of the productivity of the land.