l8 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



met with but meager success in their attempts to circumvent the 

 "niggardliness of Nature." The narrow limitations of their knowl- 

 edge prevented them from securing any considerable control over 

 natural forces. Energies were directed toward finding new Gardens 

 of Eden, where the gods gave lavishly (or of fighting for possession of 

 the old ones), rather than toward perfecting an art of food production. 

 Not till the coming of modern natural science did agriculture become 

 either so productive or so dependable that it could be extensively 

 \ commercialized. And it is this commercialization of agriculture that 

 marks the emergence of the modern economic phase of this ancient art. 



This new feature is popularly described as the " business of farm- 

 ing." The economist would perhaps supplement that phrase by add- / 

 ., ing that it is an attempt to organize technical efficiency in agriculture * 

 upon a plane of "pecuniary valuation." By this he means that it 

 is not enough for the farmer to consider merely the bulk of goods 

 which he is to produce, content in the thought that more goods mean 

 more to eat and to wear. Instead, he must bear constantly in mind 

 the price for which he can sell the goods which he produces and like- 

 wise the prices at which he can secure the machinery, seeds, and fer- 

 tilizers used in such production; he must have regard to the money 

 wage he must pay to secure labor and the price he must pay, as inter- 

 est, to secure the use of capital. Like every other industry, agricul- 

 ture today is controlled and directed by the influence of prices, 

 arrived at through the process of bargaining. 



Such has not always been the case. For many centuries in the 

 early life of the race the production of food, clothing, and other 

 agricultural goods was communal.' The producing unit, whether 

 family, clan, or tribe, was self -sufficing; it produced goods for its own 

 use, and had few if any exchange relations with other groups. Within 

 itself, too, price relations were unthought of. Labor was not organ- 

 ized on a basis of money wages, and loan capital was unknown. In 

 the fighting clan, the labor element in production was merely a by- 

 product of military enterprise, and the issue was not whether the 

 proprietor could afford more help, but whether a campaign could be 

 successfully carried off. 



The pastoral stage of development was characterized by a patri- 

 archal type of organization, and both labor and the rewards of labor 

 were assigned in accordance with rules of status. It was a purely 

 domestic arrangement (perhaps under religious sanctions) which 

 determined how much labor should be rendered and how much of the 



