2i6 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



has this effect. If, for example, the law should be such that 

 of two farmers living side by side, owning farms equally fer- 

 tile and equally well located, the more thrifty and progressive 

 is made to pay the higher taxes, the tendency will be to dis- 

 courage thrift and progressiveness. One, for example, veg- 

 etates, never improves his farm or adds to its value by draining, 

 fencing, erecting buildings, stocking it with superior equip- 

 ment, etc.; while the other plans ahead, improves his farm, 

 drains it, fences it, erects good buildings, stocks it with superior 

 breeds of live stock, equips it with superior tools, until it be- 

 comes, as the result of his own labor and forethought, worth 

 twice as much as the other. If he is then made to pay twice as 

 much in taxes as the other man, who started with as good land 

 as he did, the government is not doing very much to encourage 

 labor and forethought, to say the least. 



The law of proportions. But the problem of economizing 

 capital has in view mainly the idea of making existing accumu- 

 lations accomplish as much as possible. The first great law to 

 be laid down with respect to this problem is the law of pro- 

 portion. Stated abstractly, this law is simply that the different 

 forms of capital must be combined in the best proportions. 

 Stated concretely, it means, among other things, that there 

 should not be too many horses for the size of the plow, or too 

 large a plow for the number and strength of the horses ; that 

 the number and size of the harrows should bear the proper pro- 

 portion to the number and size of the plows, horses, etc. ; that 

 the number and size of the reaping machines should bear the 

 proper proportion to the number and size of the harrows, plows, 

 horses, etc. This is a law with an infinite number of appli- 

 cations, all of them more or less interrelated and, in the aggre- 

 gate, of the greatest possible importance. 



In the simple matter of the plow team, for example, a part 

 of the fatigue of plowing is due to the mere fact of walking, 



