CAPITAL-GOODS AS A FACTOR IN PRODUCTION 267 



the middle of the nineteenth century; the portable gas engine goes 

 still farther in his aid; and water-power promises much for the future 

 by supplying cheap electric current. Besides the utilization of small 

 water-power sites upon the farm, we may look to see the pouring of 

 considerable funds into the development of large hydro-electric plants. 

 These will be interested in the sale of current to the farmer not less 

 than to the trolley line which passes his farm. Similar developments 

 by outside capital have already taken place in the building of great 

 irrigation and drainage works. Such enterprises fall distinctly in 

 Bohm-Bawerk's third class of capital services: instead of doing better 

 or more cheaply a task already done in some other way, they make 

 possible the achieving of a result which could not be secured at all 

 without the intervention of such powerful capital-goods. 



Most significant and promising, however, of all the efforts which 

 agriculture is making today to equip itself with more productive 

 capital-goods, are those which aim to furnish better instruments for 

 utilizing the great biological forces upon which the farmer most inti- 

 mately depends. Science is rapidly finding out how to concentrate 

 the productive power of ten inferior cattle or swine or poultry into one 

 super-animal. The extraordinary sire is capitalized at thousands of 

 dollars simply because of his prepotency to add that superior produc- 

 tivity to a numerous progeny. Much money goes into plant-breeding 

 work simply because the seeds or buds or scions so secured have a 

 magnified power to use sunshine, plant food,. and human care for the 

 producing of consumers' goods in the future. 



This last class of goods serves very well to illustrate the evanescent 

 character of capital. It must be embodied in appropriate capital- 

 goods in order to be productive at all, but so embodied it is subject 

 to countless dangers of waste and ultimate dissipation. The highly 

 bred animal is more of a liability than an asset to the unskilful farmer. 

 It requires careful feeding and special care, or a high-priced death 

 results instead of enlarged production. Likewise, breeding must be 

 maintained or improved, else the strain "runs out." Every farmer 

 knows that the value of a team may be quickly impaired by improper 

 handling, and has seen expensive machinery spoiled by careless use. 



But no less real is the waste of capital due to ill-advised purchases. 

 Selection 91 shows how state authority is doing much to eliminate 

 actual fraud or misrepresentation. But a given article, without hav- 

 ing any fault of structure or composition, may be technically unsuited 

 to the purpose in mind or its purchase not economically justifiable 



