Tendency and Accident 155 



farm production stood increasingly profitable. 

 The selection of his alternatives is a matter which 

 each farmer must decide for himself, and the only 

 safe rule I can suggest is this : We can foresee 

 tendencies, but not accidents. For instance, foot 

 and mouth disease is in the nature of the case an 

 accident (however intentional in fact), but the 

 relative increase in the consumption of the pro- 

 ducts of the cow by the expanding cities of 

 America implies a tendency, and can readily be 

 anticipated for increased prices at home by the 

 cow man of Connaught. We cannot tell on which 

 dark night an Irish rancher may go out and 

 inoculate cattle with this disease, to cheapen 

 stores for his increased profit, but we know that 

 the American city and the German factory 

 consume increasing quantities of what might 

 otherwise be exportable to us, and that every unit 

 less imported of farm produce goes to advance the 

 price of the home producer. Because of the 

 tendency and in spite of the accidents, the cow 

 remains still one of our most steadily profitable and 

 most regularly marketable products, more easily 

 raised ' than crops and less easily stolen. In 

 addition to studying the tendencies and the acci- 

 dents, the Irish farmer must adapt the media of 

 his production to the ethics of his neighbourhood, 

 and the cow has an additional claim where it is no 

 longer the correct thing to steal cows. 



The pig, a much more intensive form of pro- 

 duction than the cow, and not more subject to 

 the effect of tendencies, is yet much more 



