8o AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



remain waste lands unless the public can be persuaded to increase 

 their consumption of grapefruit. The same may be said concerning 

 other sections. Wisconsin bog lands are unsuited to ordinary types 

 of farming, but if the cranberry be made a more important item in 

 the customary family diet such lands become a productive resource, 

 and our general agricultural efficiency is enlarged by so much. 



Such facts raise some very interesting issues. The producer seeks 

 to divert the public's consumption to the particular article whose pro- 

 duction would be most advantageous to him. In so far as this means 

 the utilization of resources otherwise going to waste or unprofitably 

 employed, a social as well as an individual gain results. But if, by 

 skilful advertising, the grower causes his product to displace others 

 produced at less social cost, his gain means others' loss. For this 

 reason there is much need of wise instruction as to the consumptive 

 value of the various articles offered the public for their selection. 

 Each buyer should carefully consider the application of such general 

 principles to his particular circumstances. It is worthy of note that 

 the raisin-growers of California, in their $160,000 advertising cam- 

 paign, thought it expedient to base their appeal on the food value of 

 their product. The bases of the peach and citrus-fruit propaganda 

 might well be scrutinized. 



But what shall, in the last analysis, be the standard of our judg- 

 ments, determining our choices and rejections? Are food analyses, 

 with results stated in terms of calories, an adequate guide to the fullest 

 satisfaction of food wants ? Starch and protein are not the immediate 

 ingredients of human happiness, and a diet that the food chemist 

 grades 100 per cent as a source of fuel and energy may stand much 

 below par as a source of well-being to the individual consumer. In 

 jEact, "well-being" is not a term whose meaning is plain and well 

 established. Rather, it is in process of slow adjudication in the court 

 of popular opinion. Professor Patten seems oblivious to the fact that 

 his choice of objective standards of consumption might not meet with 

 general acceptance. If I object to the exclusion of all beverages, you 

 possibly feel that the deletion of tobacco cannot be compensated by 

 however large an increment of wheat or oats. Probably we both balk 

 at rye bread, and find that every increase in the percentage of potatoes 

 robs our lives of joy by a much more than proportionate amount. We 

 are in practice convinced that a relatively costly diet finds a psycho- 

 logical if not a chemical justification. But on the other hand, no one 

 of open mind can avoid the perception that many of the costs incurred 

 in connection with our accustomed schedules of consumption are due 



