192 



PRODUCTION 



owing to the increasing shortage of productive land. The better 

 utilisation of the world's agricultural resources by intensification 

 and by drawing upon the undeveloped wealth of the tropical 

 regions, would tend to reduce this burden and prices may fall 

 relatively, while still leaving a reasonable return to the actual 

 producers. The introduction of more intensive methods, while 

 costly at first, should ultimately cheapen the costs of production 

 by increasing man's control over the forces of nature. In other 

 words, as highly intensified agriculture under the progress of tech- 

 nical applications becomes more akin to manufacturing industries, 

 the principle of increasing returns may be found to displace that of 

 diminishing returns. The opinion is, therefore, ventured that if 

 progress follows its normal course, within the next two decades 

 agricultural production throughout the civilised world will be 

 increased and cheapened. The first results of such progress would 

 be to extend and cheapen the supplies of those foodstuffs that show 

 the greatest elasticity in consumption, namely, animal foodstuffs. 



