1 88 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



or turning or causing it to be turned from the work of pro- 

 duction or service into the work of supervision, regulation, or 

 compulsion, is a source of waste energy, and is therefore to be 

 called vice or immorality. Morality, from this point of view 

 and as thus understood, is the greatest economizer of labor. It 

 is no accident, therefore, that those countries with the highest 

 standards of rational morality are also the most prosperous and 

 powerful. It is because their system of practical morality enables 

 them to economize their productive energy more effectively than 

 other nations are able to do with their inferior systems. 



While we are devising ways and means, therefore, for con- 

 serving our material resources, let us not overlook the enormous 

 waste of human energy which is now going on, lest we be guilty 

 of saving at the spigot and wasting at the bunghole. These con- 

 siderations, however, apply to the economizing of labor power 

 in general, and not specifically to the economizing of labor in 

 agriculture. That will form the topic of the next section. 



Shall we economize labor or land ? It cannot be emphasized 

 too much that the object of economizing labor, as stated in 

 preceding pages, is to secure the maximum product per unit of 

 labor and not to secure the maximum product per unit of land. 

 For securing the maximum economy of labor, as thus de- 

 fined, the chief requisites are: (i) an adequate supply of land; 



(2) an adequate equipment in power, tools, and machinery; 



(3) adequate technical knowledge of the science and art of ag- 

 riculture ; and (4) superior business management. The reasons 

 for an adequate supply of land are chiefly summed up in the 

 law of diminishing returns, as outlined above. This brings 

 us face to face with one of the greatest of all economic 

 problems, because the maximum economy of labor is secured 

 by means of a use of land so extensive as to seem almost 

 wasteful, whereas the maximum economy of land is secured 

 by an application of labor so lavish as to be wasteful of that 



