DISTRIBUTION OF AGRICULTURAL INCOME 325 



measures to win his bet, these measures might be effective, while 

 the mere fact of betting unaccompanied by such measures would 

 have no effect whatever. If the gambler who had bet that the 

 price of wheat would go up should set about quietly to buy all 

 the real wheat there was to be had and then refuse to sell to 

 anybody, he might, if his money should hold out, actually force 

 the price high enough to enable him to win all his bet. But this 

 is a very difficult thing to accomplish because it can easily be 

 prevented by his opponents if they see through his game in 

 time. As a matter of fact it is never accomplished successfully 

 more than once in a lifetime. The man who tries it almost in- 

 variably fails and bankrupts himself as the result of his folly. 



It should be observed that there are no profits of gamblers as 

 a class, for what one makes another loses. But in the business 

 of real buying and selling there is a margin of difference, on 

 the average and in the long run, in favor of those who buy at 

 opportune times say just after a wheat harvest and sell 

 when the article is more wanted than it was when it was bought. 

 This margin is due to the fact that the speculator relieves the other 

 classes of the disadvantages and uncertainties of waiting, ena- 

 bling them to realize a certain price at once, which they will gen- 

 erally prefer to an uncertain price in the future, even when the 

 chances are that the future price will be slightly higher than 

 the present one. The speculator furnishes a kind of insurance 

 by relieving others of a share of their risk. 



It is not to be inferred, however, that all risk is burdensome. 

 The gambling instinct is so strong in some people that they will 

 eagerly hazard their wealth on chances which they know to be 

 against them, purely for the excitement of the hazard. Different 

 individuals differ greatly in this particular, but in general it will 

 be found that small sums will be risked on the chance of win- 

 ning large ones more readily than large ones will be risked on 

 the chance of winning small ones, even when the chances in the 



