690 EXPFIRTMENT STATION RECORD. 



accepted deQuition and also lojiically deals only with the relation of expense 

 and yield in similar conditions of technical knowledge. 



(3) With the increase of poi)ulation, the increasing intensive culture in agri- 

 culture leads to a decrease in the cost of labor in relation to the value of the 

 products. This decrease is a result of the universal operation of the law of 

 productiveness. While the yields of land must be materially secured in a 

 more unproductive way, the price of products increases more rapidly than the 

 price of labor, and so also the value of the total products of a business increases 

 more rapidly than the value of the proper labor (>xpense and of the expense in 

 general. 



(4) Moreover, the dearer hibor becomes in relation to the value of manu- 

 factured means of production used in agriculture, the more the productiveness 

 of labor, in comparison with the last-named form of productiveness as a result 

 of the increase in intensive culture, must approach to ever narrower limits. 

 For as the limits of the profitableness of capital are reached more rapidly than 

 in the case of labor, the latter must be supplied by capital. If man seeks in 

 the spliere of individual operations for phenomena which can be traced back 

 to the operation of the law of i^roductivity, the relative decrease in the cost of 

 labor is undoubtedly one of the most striking. But at the same time there is 

 no such thing as a law of diminishing cost of labor in the sense of an opposite 

 tendency to the very characteristic phenomenon of land productivity. 



(5) As a systematic inquiry, the investigation has confirmed the conviction 

 that in searching for the fundamental principles and laws of agriculture, the 

 statistical metliod ju'omises smaller results than the deductive interpretation 

 of absolutely known facts. The signification of statistics does not lie primarily 

 in the province of induction, but rather in the verification of that which has 

 already been learned as a result of induction. 



The recent agricultural strike and its influence on rural economy, P. ViN- 

 CEY {Bui. Soc. Agr. France, 1909, Oct. 6, pp. 78^-79//).— 'This paper, presented 

 at a meeting of the National Society of Agriculture, held October 27, 1909, dis- 

 cusses the economic effects of a strike declared simultaneously on July 12, 1909, 

 by all the laborers employed on the farms owned by the City of Paris and let 

 out to operators engaged in various branches of the agricultural industry. 



The strike was settled on the following day in most instances, the operators 

 conceding a higher rate of wages ranging from 9.2 to 24.6 per cent increase to 

 the different grades of farm laborers, not from any sense of justice but rather 

 from the danger of losing their entire crops. The economic effects of this in- 

 crease in wages on the returns to the operators, who were able to secure no 

 higher prices for their products, as well as on the future operation of these 

 farms involving less hand labor, are presented. 



The paper is followed by a discussion in which the relation of the strike to 

 the high cost of living is given prominence. 



Agricultural labor, J. M. £. Izaguiree (Prog. Agr. y Pecuario, 16 {1910), 

 No. 658, pp. 7, S). — This article compares the numbers of w'oi-kers in agricultui'e 

 and industry in England, France, and Spain, and points out the great dispro- 

 portion of agricultural laborers to industrial laborers in Spain as compared 

 with the other countries. Thus Spain, with a population of about 20 millions, 

 has about 7i millions of workers of whom more than 4i millions are engaged 

 iu agricultural pursuits; while France has about 40 millions of inhabitants, 

 with more than 14 millions of workers, of whom less than 5^ millions are 

 engaged in agriculture. 



The disproportion between agricultural and industrial laborers is regarded 

 as the cause of the depression of agriculture in Spain, resulting in serious 

 competition for work, overcrowding of cities, and emigration. The remedies 



