CONSUMPTION 79 



dently, then, attention is not less needed in reviewing and, perchance, 

 revising the consumer's demand for products of the soil than in 

 improving the farmer's material and intellectual equipment for 

 increasing their supply. As Professor Patten points out, a given 

 amount of effort directed to one sort of food production will produce, 

 let us say, twice as much of food value as the same amount of effort 

 directed toward the growing of another article. This fact being 

 known, mere common-sense dictates the selection of the product 

 which makes the lighter demands upon soil, muscle, and equipment. 

 Obviously, the acquiring and applying of knowledge as to which types 

 of consumption impose the lightest burden upon agriculture are indis- 

 pensable to our fullest prosperity. 



For example, let us say that we have a great working population 

 who find it hard to make their labor produce enough of certain essen- 

 tial food materials for their physical well-being. Under such condi- 

 tions it is highly important to try to improve the character or 

 organization of their productive labors so that they can raise more 

 wheat for starch and more beef for protein, to improve their diet and 

 thereby their bodily welfare. But it is no less important to examine 

 the nature of our physiological needs and to analyze the properties of 

 other than the conventional articles of diet, in order to find other 

 products which will furnish these necessary substances, but in whose 

 production the same amount of labor, land, and capital will secure a 

 greater product than in the case of those formerly consumed. 



Undoubtedly we have been very extravagant in our use of many 

 of the products of our economic labors. We used to put cotton-seed 

 upon the land as fertilizer for the growing of other crops. Then we 

 began to feed it to stock, for the production of meat. Now we are 

 seriously broaching the question of consuming it directly in our diet, 

 instead of using it in more roundabout and wasteful methods of 

 securing human food. This effort is quite analogous to that of the 

 manufacturer who is always seeking cheaper materials and more direct 

 methods for the carrying out of his industrial process. It is distinctly 

 an economic phenomenon, and as such should be included in our study. 



Furthermore, the man who is concerned only in securing the maxi- 

 mum product from natural resources must realize that one of the 

 factors in his problem is the desire or willingness of the public to con- 

 sume this, that, or another particular, and perhaps unfamiliar, product. 

 The latter part of selection 260, well illustrates this point. The writer 

 suggests that lands adapted to raising grapefruit will be likely to 



