80 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



capacity of land is influenced by its topography, temperature, 

 rainfall, texture, and the kind of crops grown. Clay loam 

 usually has greater capacity than sandy loam, that is, a greater 

 amount of labor and capital must be put upon a given area in 

 order to secure optimum results in a given line of production. 

 In other words, land with high capacity permits of a higher 

 degree of intensity of culture in a given year in the production 

 of a given crop than land with a low capacity. This will be 

 further explained in a later chapter. 



Land varies not only in its economic capacity but also in its 

 economic efficiency. The economic efficiency of land is measured 

 in terms of the value of the product per unit of labor and capital 

 expended upon it. The term " efficiency " is here used in the 

 same sense as it is used by the engineer who calculates the effi- 

 ciency of his locomotive in terms of the power developed per 

 unit of coal shoveled into the fire-box, the only difference being 

 that here we are calculating the number of dollars' worth of 

 product per dollar's worth of labor and capital put into the 

 land. More briefly stated, efficiency is measured in terms of 

 output per unit of " input," whereas capacity is measured in 

 terms of input per acre of land. 



Capacity and efficiency are the two dimensions of productivity. 

 If one would compare the productivity of two pieces of land 

 it is not enough to know how much corn or other crop it will 

 yield per acre ; it is necessary to know the expense of the pro- 

 duction (the input) and the product per unit of expense. A 

 piece of land might yield a large product per acre and yet class 

 as relatively poor land because of the great expense of produc- 

 tion. 



The product is always equal to capacity midtiplied by efficiency, 

 and in order to compare the worth of two grades of land one 

 should ascertain the number of capacity units per acre and the 

 efficiency per unit of capacity. For example, in comparing 

 land " A " and land " B " let us assume that land " A " has 

 10 units of capacity and " B " 8 units of capacity. If their 

 efficiency were the same the ratio of usefulness would be as 

 10 is to 8. But each capacity unit, that is each dollar expended 



