AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



seems to them essential to happiness. It is true 

 that many farmers always receive as their share of 

 the product, more than this necessary minimum. 

 This is generally true of the more efficient farm- 

 ers ; but the marginal farmers may be thought of 

 as receiving this minimum when long time aver- 

 ages are taken into account. 



There will always be fluctuations ; there will be 

 times when the demand for farmers is great rela- 

 tively to the supply, and as a result even the mar- 

 ginal farmers will receive more than the necessary 

 minimum which is required to induce them to par- 

 ticipate in agricultural production. This condi- 

 tion of affairs would make agriculture a very at- 

 tractive pursuit, however, and the tendency would 

 be for men from other pursuits to be attracted into 

 agriculture; or at least for a smaller proportion 

 of each generation of farm boys to enter the in- 

 dustries of the cities, and in the course of time the 

 competition would drive the profits of the maf- 

 ginal farmer down to the minimum. 



Again, the number of competing farmers may 

 become too great, so that the returns of the mar- 

 ginal farmers will be depressed far below the nec- 

 essary minimum; but this would result in the 

 elimination of some of the less efficient farmers, 

 and perhaps others as well, who would decide they 

 could do better in some other industry. To the 



tutes his 'standard of life'." (R. T. Ely, Outlines of Eco- 

 nomics, p. i 8 i.) 



154 



