94 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



very great, which being spread, as it usually is, on the arable fields, 

 insures good crops so much better than if such stocks of cattle were 

 not kept that I question if three acres are not as productive as five 

 would be. 



Now let us turn to the Frenchmen: their two most general courses 

 are, (i) Fallow, (2) Wheat, and (i) Fallow, (2) Wheat, (3) Barley or 

 Oats. Wheat being in France the great object, all the expense is 

 applied to that; a year's fallow is given, and what little dung they 

 raise is all spread on it. The little demand for meat, butter, and 

 cheese necessitates the farmer to apply all his land to corn the con- 

 sequences of which are he pursues a bad course of crops, the products 

 are small, and profits comparatively nothing. 



It must surely be evident to everyone that there is a great advan- 

 tage to the English farmer from corn and cattle being in equal demand, 

 since he is thereby enabled to apply all his lands to those productions 

 only to which they are best adapted, and at the same tune the one 

 is constantly a means of increasing the product of the other. Nor is 

 the advantage by any means confined to the husbandman : the state 

 is intimately concerned. A much greater value is drawn from the 

 earth; the farmer's profit is greater, consequently he is wealthier, and 

 more able to work improvements and at the same tune to pay his 

 landlord a great rent: points of vast importance to the national 

 interest. 



23. UNWISE CONSUMPTION MEANS COSTLY PRODUCTION 1 

 BY S. N. PATTEN 



If it takes fifteen bushels of wheat to make bread enough to last 

 one man a year, and if an acre of land will raise only fifteen bushels, 

 it is plain that if a man have only half an acre he must raise something 

 else than wheat or go hungry. So long as a community having land 

 of this kind live on wheat we could say with certainty just how many 

 persons its land will support. There could only be as many men as 

 there were acres of land. If, without substituting a more productive 

 crop for wheat, they should use one-sixth of their land to raise tobacco, 

 the number of people would be reduced by one-sixth. Should they 

 now acquire a love for beer and use a second sixth of the land to raise 



1 Adapted from Consumption of Wealth, 2d ed., 1901, Publications of the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania, Series in Political Economy and Public Law, No. 4, 

 PP- 52-59. 



