752 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ISTo otlier animal has jet developed the powers of reflection, forecast, 

 and imagination, which not only create new wants among men, but 

 which also develop the powers by means of which these wants can be 

 supplied. All other animals are dominated by the physical forces of 

 Nature. Man alone dominates these forces, giving them a new direc- 

 tion, tending constantly to the increase of the means of subsistence at 

 a much more rapid rate than the increase of the population. 



For untold ages the wind-swept prairies of the great Mississippi 

 Yalley had served to nourish a few millions of bisons which, ranging 

 from north to south and grazing as they went, maintained a certain 

 proportion of animal life to the means of subsistence, while a small 

 number of Indians warring among themselves and showing no signs 

 of progressive development sparsely occupied what is now the granary 

 of the world. Presently came upon the scene men who had learned 

 how to direct the forces of iron, steel, and steam. All the material 

 conditions were changed under the power of the directing mind of 

 man. From that valley are distributed the means of subsistence 

 without which even in the present year disastrous famines would 

 have devastated Europe. No man yet knows or can measure the 

 potential or the productive energy of a single acre of land anywhere 

 in ratio to the labor put upon it. We stand at the very beginning 

 of progress in scientific agriculture, leading to lessened labor and in- 

 creased product. 



In the mind of Malthus and of Ricardo land appears to have 

 been regarded as a mine subject like mines of metal to exhaustion. 

 We are but beginning to learn that land is but an instrument or a 

 laboratory responding in its products to the minimum of labor and 

 the maximum of intelligence. 



In order that we may fully comprehend the true nature and 

 source of the increased production of the means of subsistence 

 throughout the centuries, we must give regard to the relative insig- 

 nificance of accumulated capital as compared to mental capital or 

 experience. Material wealth counts but little as compared to mental 

 capital. I have often had occasion to refer to the fact that the richest 

 and most prosperous state in the world may possibly accumulate capi- 

 tal to the measure of three or possibly four years of production. Sev- 

 eral years since I made a very accurate measure of the total valua- 

 tion of all the mills, works, railroads, dwelling houses, goods and 

 wares, tools and implements of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 

 standing for the savings in a concrete or material form of more 

 than two centuries of progress. They did not then equal the measure 

 of three years' consumption. That which is the wealth of one gen- 

 eration is destroyed by the inventor who substitutes better mechan- 

 ism for purposes of production and distribution. The entire profit 



