4 6 



READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



indicated, and the quantities which the labor power requisite for 

 their production with the aid of machines could have produced 

 had it been devoted to the production of those same crops by 

 hand methods, we have the following : 



The increased effectiveness of man-labor power when aided by 

 the use of machinery, as indicated by these figures, varies from 

 150 per cent in the case of rye to 2244 per cent in the case 

 of barley. From this point of view a machine is " not a labor- 

 saving " but rather a " product-making " device. 1 Taking the per 

 cent of labor saved (see p. 52), as indicating the average pro- 

 portion of these crops due to the use of machinery, it appears 

 that the quantity of product is almost five times as great, per unit 

 of labor, as it formerly was. 



The Cost of Production 



Touching the difference in the cost of production per unit of 

 product, the Thirteenth Annual Report of the Department of 

 Labor furnishes some data that will well repay a somewhat extended 

 consideration. It should be observed, however, that these data 

 with reference to the cost of production, although collected at 

 the same time and, doubtless, with the same care as the data 

 already taken from that report, are, nevertheless, for the purposes 

 of generalization, far less reliable. The average workman will 

 perform the same quantity of work in a day, whether he works in 



lludlev. Kconomics, p. 338. 



