The Kational View. 105 



decline of agricultural prosperity is the slow gain in 

 total annual value of agricultural products. As shown 

 by one of the preceding tables the capital invested in 

 the industrv has increased four-fold since 1850; the num- 

 ber of farmers as indicated by the number of farms has 

 multiplied three-fold; and owing to the substitution of 

 the quick-moving horse for the slow-going ox and great 

 improvement in farm machinery, the labor of man is far 

 more productive than fifty years ago. For these reasons 

 the quant it u produced in 1900 must have been three or 

 four times as much as in the former time. Did the value 

 received by the farmer show a corresi^onding increase! 

 For answer we turn to Mr. S. X. D. North, one of the 

 prominent supervisors of the census of 1900. In an arti- 

 cle published in the American Eeview of Ee^dews Sep- 

 tember, 1902, pages 319 to 324, he says, ''The population 

 has in the meantime increased two and one quarter fold 

 (since 1850) and the value of agricultural products some- 

 thing less than two-fold." 



The slow increase in total value of agricultural lorod- 

 ucts will be far more apparent by a comparison with the 

 increased value of manufactured products. The value of 

 manufactured products increased twelve-fold. The in- 

 crease in number of average wage-earners was about 

 four and one-half fold. The increase in capital is given 

 as nearly seventeen-fold, but was actually far less. In 

 1890, for the first time, ''Live capital, i.e., cash on hand, 

 bills receivable, unsettled ledger accounts, raw materials, 

 stock in process of manufacture, finished products on 

 hand, and other sundries, was for the first time included 

 as a separate and distinct item of capital." These items 

 undoubtedly added billions of dollars to capital. To indi- 

 cate the enormous effect we give the percentage of gain 



