AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



goods which should be brought under one man L 

 agement in order that the best results shall be 

 attained; but in this chapter quantities or pro- 

 portions will be disregarded, and our attention 

 will be fixed upon the qualities of these factors, 

 with a view to determining which grades of land, 

 laborers, horses, machines, etc., should be asso- 

 ciated together. 



When viewed from the standpoint of the high- 

 est value of the productions of a country it be- 

 comes apparent that the farmers who are qualita- 

 tively most efficient, should employ the most pro- 

 ductive grades of capital-goods upon the most 

 productive land. A mathematical illustration of 

 this is as follows. Let the grades of farmers be 

 represented by the figures 2, 4, and 6 ; the grades 

 of capital-goods by the figures i, 3, and 5 ; and the 

 grades of land by the figures 8, 10, and 12. Hav- 

 ing in mind that a given grade of land, for exam- 

 ple, will yield twice as much product in value if 

 farmed by the man whose efficiency is represented 

 by figure four as it will if managed by the one 

 whose efficiency is represented by figure two, etc., 

 for the other grades and factors, let the reader 

 try to multiply these figures together, taking one 

 figure from each group, in such a manner that the 

 sum of the products will be the greatest possible. 

 Note that when the highest from each group are 

 associated together, and the medium, and again 

 the lowest are in turn associated together the sum 



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