AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



further be assumed that any of these farmers can 

 secure twice as large a return on the ist grade 

 land from a given outlay as he can secure on 6th 

 grade land, and that the gradation of the land is 

 continuous and regular from the first to the sixth 

 grade. 



With these assumptions in mind let the follow- 

 ing figures represent the value of the gross prod- 

 uct which the farmers of the respective grades can 

 produce as a result of the employment of a given 

 quantity of labor and capital-goods on the differ- 

 ent grades of land. To make this illustration in- 

 clude the factor of variations in intensity of cul- 

 ture we have taken a fixed amount of expendi- 

 ture instead of a fixed area of land. If, therefore, 

 one acre be the area of the 6th grade land on which 

 this fixed amount of expenditure is made, less than 

 an acre of the more productive grades of land will 

 be associated with the given amount of labor and 

 capital-goods, for the more productive the land the 

 more intensive the culture. 



GRADES OF LAND 



It is fair to assume that the F grade or mar- 

 172 



