150 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



to the high productivity of corn, it appears that when the yield 

 per acre of all the important crops in both places is reduced to an 

 equivalent in terms of feed units ( = i Ib. of corn or wheat), the 

 production in Iowa is expressed by 1458 units per acre, while 

 that in Bavaria comes to only 1191 units. The production of 

 these crops does not, of course, comprise all of the agricultural 

 activities of either locality, but it may perhaps be considered rep- 

 resentative of actual conditions. The production in Iowa of the 

 crops mentioned was 86,777 feed units per person engaged in 

 agriculture, while that in Bavaria was 21,231 units per person so 

 engaged ; the Iowa farmer, therefore, produced more than four 

 times as much, man for man, as the Bavarian farmer. A table 

 showing the basis of this discussion is appended. 



To sum up, Iowa has a natural advantage over Bavaria in that 

 she can raise corn, but she has an even greater advantage in that 

 the distribution of land and the methods of agriculture practiced 

 by her farmers are such that the average person working on a 

 farm in Iowa receives a return for his labor that is four times as 

 great as that obtained by the peasant tilling the soil of Bavaria. 



