PRINCIPLES OF RURAL 

 I ECONOMICS 



CHAPTER I 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES 



I. WAYS OF GETTING A LlVING 



The subject matter of economics. The study of man's efforts 

 to get a living, which is the subject matter of economics, may 

 well be considered one of the most serious and important 

 topics which can possibly engage the attention of the student. 

 We may begin this study with the rather commonplace observa- 

 tion that the race must get its living out of the material world 

 which surrounds it ; that is, its living must ultimately come 

 out of the soil and the water. But when we consider man as 

 an individual rather than as a race, we find that he sometimes 

 makes his living directly out of other individuals, and not 

 invariably out of the soil and the water. In a primitive or 

 savage state, unrestrained by a sens'e of justice or by a code of 

 laws, he usually followed the method which promised the largest 

 returns for the least effort. If war and plunder offered 'much 

 more attractive opportunities he resorted to war and plunder. 

 If hunting animals rather than men offered an equally good 

 opportunity, he hunted animals. But when neither of these 

 methods proved profitable enough, he resorted to the herding 

 of animals, sometimes to the herding of men under the form 

 of slavery, sometimes to the cultivation of the soil and the 

 selection, planting, and harvesting of desirable crops. 



