10 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



this reason agricultural communities are usually characterized 

 by their stability, whereas lumbering and mining communi- 

 ties, usually called^camps in this country, are characterized by 

 their instability. 



Transcendent importance of agriculture. As compared with 

 the secondary industries, agriculture is still overwhelmingly the 

 most important, if we consider the world at large, or any consid- 

 erable section of it which is self-supporting. But agriculture is 

 gradually losing this position, relatively at least, for reasons which 

 will be noticed later. Even now there are certain sections, and 

 even whole countries, which manufacture a great deal more, and 

 produce on farms a great deal less, than they consume, exchang- 

 ing their surplus manufactures for the surplus agricultural prod- 

 ucts of other sections or countries where land is more abundant 

 and population less abundant. In such places agriculture may 

 be, for a time, forced into a subordinate position. 



Why agriculture is losing ground. Again, as civilization 

 advances and men come to demand finer and still finer prod- 

 ucts for their use, the tendency seems to be for manufactures, 

 trade, and transportation to gain in magnitude and importance 

 as compared with the extractive industries. In order that there 

 may be a supply of the finer products which the world is coming 

 to demand, the raw materials which the extractive industries 

 furnish must be worked over more and more and brought to a 

 higher degree of refinement. This is, in general, though not 

 wholly, the work of the secondary industries, and thus the 

 magnitude of their work grows in comparison with that of the 

 extractive industries. However, this demand for finer products 

 tends also to stimulate certain high types of farming, such as 

 market gardening, fruit growing, milk production, etc. It takes 

 more work, for example, to produce the very best quality of 

 milk than a poor quality ; and when the market comes to de- 

 mand a higher grade of milk, and is willing to pay for it, there 



