LAND AND OTHER AGENTS OF PRODUCTION 127 



Here, again, the question is one of degree, and we pass from lands that 

 are absolute waste to grazing lands, orchards, and better and better 

 types of field tillage, with larger fields, lighter draft on farm imple- 

 ments, better roads, and cheaper freight rates. 



It is apparent that we are dealing in all this with two sets of con- 

 ditions one absolute, the other relative. Degrees of temperature, 

 inches of rainfall, and angle of slope these are absolute facts. But 

 the actual technical productivity of land possessing a given measure 

 of these positive attributes is a relative matter and s depends upon our 

 technique of production. The effective qualities of land are those 

 which men have learned to understand and in some measure to control. 

 The character of land as a technical agent of production thus under- 

 goes a change with every addition to the science of agriculture, with 

 every new discovery concerning soil fertility or plant or animal 

 behavior. 



This may seem at first glance to make the category of "land and 

 other natural resources" very inclusive and to threaten to bring into 

 it some of the human factor that we are in the habit of classing under 

 the head of labor. As a matter of fact, however, it serves rather to 

 complete the discussion of the contribution which nature makes to 

 the productive process. Our knowledge has been greatly enlarged in 

 this direction since the day when Ricardo spoke so unluckily of original 

 and indestructible powers. But this expanding knowledge has never 

 been very fully taken into account by our economic theory, perhaps 

 because general economics has been so largely concerned with indus- 

 trial problems and thinking so often in terms of the standing-room 

 or location aspect of land. In agricultural economics, the stress is 

 of necessity upon this very question of the productive contribution 

 of land and its appurtenances, of life forms and natural forces. We 

 are therefore forced to explore somewhat, or rather to ; take due 

 account of the explorations of the scientists, and to build our economic 

 theory accordingly. They aspire to tell us not only the forms in which 

 nature presents herself but also the forces which she offers to mankind 

 to use to reshape these forms to his advantage. The potentialities of 

 plant breeding or nitrogen fixation must go into our inventory of the 

 land and its resources quite as much as the area of the land or its 

 present state of fertility. 



But such qualities are quite distinct from the labor of the men 

 who utilize them or the objects in which they are embodied. We 

 may illustrate this by reference to the principles of heredity and the 



