AGRICULTURE AND THE SINGLE TAX. 493 



into bread, the bread must be carried to the consumer. All these 

 processes require labor in countless forms in the production of 

 machinery, buildings, tools, packages, and transportation. The 

 bale of cotton must be packed, carried to and fro, spun, woven, 

 and again carried to and fro. So of every product of the earth, 

 without exception. All industry and all commerce are concerned 

 in changing the forms and places of the products of agriculture, 

 forestry, mines, and fisheries. 



John Stuart Mill (" Political Economy," Book I, Chapter II) 

 asks why the grinding of corn should be considered a manufact- 

 uring employment, while the thrashing of it is agricultural. The 

 only reason, he says, is that thrashing is usually done on the farm, 

 while the grinding is done at a mill. Butter-making is counted 

 an agricultural employment if it is done on the farm, but a manu- 

 facturing employment if it is done at a creamery. But it is the 

 making of the butter, and not the place of making, that is the 

 essential thing. * Carry your imagination along all the ramifica- 

 tions of human industry to its farthest confines, and where can 

 you find anything that is not analogous to the two related em- 

 ployments of the milk-maid and the butter-maker ? Mr. Mill 

 shows that the labor of astronomers, who help the sailor to find 

 his way by the shortest paths over seas, carrying the farmer's 

 products, is productive labor, and that whether it be called agri- 

 cultural or not is of no importance to the sum total of the world's 

 wealth. To draw a distinction, therefore, between agriculture 

 and the manipulation and transportation of its products, as a 

 source of wealth and taxes, is false reasoning. 



Taxes must be apportioned among political units. The State 

 of Connecticut is one such unit, and I choose this for present con- 

 sideration because there has been a recent official examination of 

 the profits of agriculture in that State, which enables us to see 

 what economic rent amounts to in one of the most industrious 

 and prosperous communities in the Union. It is embraced in the 

 " Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the year 1889." 

 Mr. Hotchkiss, the commissioner, has sought to make out as good 

 a case for agriculture as possible, to show that it is not in a dis- 

 tressed condition, or not necessarily so. What is the showing of 

 economic rent in Connecticut ? 



Six hundred and ninety-three farms were visited. Three 

 hundred and fourteen report average profits of I3G2.88. Three 

 hundred and seventy-eight report an average loss of $268.59. 

 One reports neither loss nor gain. In this calculation the farm- 

 er's family support was reckoned as part of the farm expenses, 

 which Mr. Hotchkiss thinks is improper, since, in reckoning the 

 gains of other trades, it is customary to deal only with the profits 

 and losses of the business by itself. Making this correction, he 



