622 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



B. The Nature of Competition for the Use of Land 



195. THE DIFFERENTIAL PRODUCTIVITY OF FARMERS 1 

 BY HENRY C. TAYLOR 



According to the textbooks on political economy which are gen- 

 erally used in America today, rent varies in the same ratio as difference 

 in productivity. By differences in productivity are usually meant 

 differences hi the value of the product of different farms of equal 

 areas when cultivated with the same degree of intensity. It is appar- 

 ently assumed that all farmers possess the same degree of efficiency, 

 and that ah 1 land is cultivated with the same degree of intensity or 

 else that variations in these respects do not make it necessary to 

 modify the statement that differential rents are measured by differ- 

 ences hi productivity. It is the purpose of this paper to consider the 

 influence of variations in the efficiency of farmers and in the intensity 

 of culture upon the amount of rent which will be paid for the use of 

 land, and to point out that because of these variations differential 

 rent cannot be measured in terms of differences in productivity. 



The relative degree of prosperity to which the American farmer 

 can attain is determined largely by his own efficiency. While the 

 farmers who possess a relatively high degree of qualitative efficiency 

 can win a larger return from land of any grade than can their less 

 efficient competitors, this extra product due to superior ability is 

 greater on the more productive than on the less productive land; 

 and for this reason the more efficient farmers compete only for the 

 more productive land, and pay more for it than the less efficient 

 farmers can afford to pay. If, therefore, we measure differences in 

 productivity in terms of the differences in the value of the products 

 which the least efficient or marginal farmers could produce on the 

 various grades of land under comparison, differential rents will be 

 greater than differences in productivity. Inasmuch, however, as 

 competition among the more efficient farmers for the more productive 

 grades of land leads to a distribution of the land among the farmers 

 in accordance with their efficiency the most efficient farmers pos- 

 sessing the most productive and the least efficient the least productive 

 land hi use the differences in the actual yield of the different grades 

 of land are greater than the differences in the yield which any given 

 farmer could produce; and, since the better farmers could win, and 



1 Adapted from the Quarterly Journal of Economics, XVil (1903), 598-604. 



