496 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. [Vol.35 



Water problem, simplified, W. A. Ethebton {Farm Engin., 3 {1916), No. 11, 

 pp. 2/f9, 250, figs. Jf). — A simple water supply system consisting essentially of a 

 pump, hot-water tank, and sink, and employing a three-way cock for supplying 

 liot and cold water, is described and illustrated. 



RURAL ECONOMICS. 



What is agricultural economics? E. G. Noxjbse {Jour. Polit. Econ., B-i 

 {1916). No. Jf, pp. 363-381). — The author points out that agricultural economics 

 is an application of general economics to the practical business of agriculture 

 rather than an independent study of doctrines built up out of a specialized 

 body of data. 



"An examination of text-books and college announcements seems to indicate 

 that at present most courses with a rather detailed study of production (now 

 often including marketing) and, except for the many who stop with that, 

 leap over to a fragmentary discussion of distribution as touching the farmer's 

 profits. But this is no adequate preparation for meeting the more intricate 

 problems facing modern agriculture. The student, besides examining the 

 economic factors in technical productive efficiency, needs to understand the 

 laws of value and the process by which physical units of product are fitted 

 to psychic units of want through the agency of an exchange mechanism ; he 

 needs to consider not only how this aggregate lump of values is broken up 

 into private incomes, but how the use of this wealth in private hands reacts 

 upon the further operation of the system. Even when for practical reasons 

 the course in agricultural economics must be much compacted, it should be 

 reduced to a stout framework of fundamental principles instead of bloating 

 into a flabby mass of descriptive generalities. . . . 



" Our purpose in elaborating an economics of agriculture is to train the 

 agriculturist in the business principles which govern the commercial success 

 or failure of his enterprise, but not less to enable him and likewise those 

 others who are not engaged in agriculture to perceive the economic results 

 which will flow from one sort of agrictultural organization or another, from 

 one sort or another of consumption of our resources of land, labor, and capital." 



Economic cycles: Their law and cause, H. L. Moore {New York: The Mac- 

 millan Co., 1914, pp. VIII-\-U9, figs. 27).— The author attempts to trace the 

 influence of the weather upon crop production and the influence of variations 

 in crop production upon prices. He claims that the fundamental, persistent 

 cause of the cycles in the yields of the crops is the cyclical movement in the 

 weather conditions represented by the rhythmically changing amount of rain- 

 fall. These cycles are of 33 and of 8-year periods. 



The falling yield in crops leads to a diminution of the volume of trade, a 

 decline in the demand for producers' goods, a fall in the prices of producers' 

 goods, a decrease in employment, and a fall of the demand curves for crops, 

 with the final result of a fall in general prices. Similarly, a rising yield in the 

 crops leads to an increase in the volume of trade, an increase in the demand 

 for producers' goods, an increase of employment, and a rise in the demand 

 curves for crops, with the final result of a rise in general prices. 



He states that the cycles in the yield per acre of crops are followed at an 

 interval of two years by cycles in the activities of industry and in the volume 

 of trade, and at an intei-val of about four years by cycles in prices. 



Wages and rural migration, A. Beckerich {Ann. Sci. Agron., Jf. ser., 4 

 {1915), July-Sept., pp. 85-214). — The author discusses the movement of wages 

 of the different classes of agricultural workers in various agricultural regions 

 of France, the movement of prices of agricultural products and the number of 



