1 96 HarsJiberger. — Maize : 



American people do not want the plants which can be grown 

 in these areas. So long as the home market does not demand 

 any other articles of food than those staple ones to which 

 our ancestors in Europe were adjusted, there can be but little 

 use made of districts of our country for which [certain plants] 

 are most fitted. A much greater improvement in the condi- 

 tion of the American people could be made by adjusting our 

 consumption to American conditions than by all the machines 

 that it is possible to devise." 1 These changes in the con- 

 sumption of food make it possible to construct a national 

 system of agriculture. 



The national rotation makes it possible to have many arti- 

 cles upon a plane as regards price and nutritive value. Meat, 

 beans, peas, cheese, for instance, will be placed essentially on 

 the same level, as regards marginal utility or value. When a 

 scarcity of any one of these articles occurs, another can be 

 substituted immediately without effecting any hardship. 



In the standard of life old articles will be replaced by new 

 ones which have the same ratio of cost to utility as the old 

 ones. This renders it easy to construct a scale of total con- 

 sumption. The total consumption of an individual consists 

 of groups composed of isolated articles, which stand higher 

 or lower in the scale according to their marginal utilities. 

 Articles of the same marginal utility (value) and same nutri- 

 tive ratio can replace old articles of the same value in the 

 group without in the least affecting the general usefulness of 

 the group. The association of the articles together in a food 

 group can be represented by a curve. The highest point of 

 the curve represents the position of the articles which give 

 the most satisfaction and pleasure, and the lowest point 

 represents the position of those articles which give the least 

 pleasure : 



1 Patten, S. N., Economic Basis of Protection, 121. I am indebted for many of the 

 views here presented, concerning a dynamic society, to the lectures of Professor Patten, 

 delivered at the University during 1892-93, and to his books and numerous of his articles 

 on the subject, but the responsibility for their connection in this chapter rests with me. 



