THE PROPORTIONS OF THE FACTORS OF PRODUCTION 147 



shall be as large as possible, he may desire that the intensity 

 of culture be carried to the farthest extreme. So long as an 

 increment of expenditure will add anything to the product it 

 might seem to his interest to have the increment applied, for 

 it would add to his income. Thus, stated in its extreme form, 

 it would seem that while the share tenant would desire to farm 

 so extensively that the average gross return per unit of labor 

 and capital would reach the maximum, the landlord might 

 desire that the gross return per acre should reach its absolute 

 maximum, without regard to cost per unit of the product. 



It is evident that the interest of the landlord as well as that 

 of the share tenant is here in conflict with the interest of society 

 as a whole ; for to follow what seems to be the landlord's high- 

 est economic interest in this particular would result in the re- 

 duction of the total agricultural product which could be pro- 

 duced with a given amount of social energy. 



But it becomes apparent that the landlord will always be 

 unable to induce his share tenant to farm any more intensively 

 than an owner of land or a tenant with a fixed rent finds it to his 

 interest to farm his land, for the tenant could otherwise do 

 better by paying a cash rent or by taking up new land of nom- 

 inal value. On the other hand, the share tenants are, in the 

 United States, quite generally under the direct supervision of 

 the owners of the land, who insist that the share tenant should 

 farm as well as the owners would do. It may be true that this 

 ideal is not often perfectly attained, and yet the tendency is 

 for the landlord to so bring his influence to bear upon the share 

 tenant that the social loss due to share tenancy is, perhaps, 

 not very great. 



In fact the advice of a landlord who himself is a successful 

 farmer often results in an important increase in the product of 

 the farm to the benefit not only of the landlord and the tenant 

 who shares the profits, but to the consumer of the goods. 



Standpoint 2. We have here the more immediate problem of 

 determining the proper intensity of culture at a given stage in 

 the process of producing the crop. This depends largely upon 

 the exigencies of the weather. The farm manager cannot tell in 



