876 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



the stock on hand that has been produced at low cost. Enterprise is 

 placed between the forces of competition, between owners of resource^ 

 and ultimate consumers, between laborers and the final purchasers of 

 labor's services. The enterpriser's economic survival is conditioned 

 on vigilance, strength, and self-assertion. 



Profits therefore fluctuate more from industry to industry and 

 from man to man than do other incomes. The variations of the market 

 may sweep away not only all "profits," but all the invested capital 

 As a consequence, profits may be at other times very high, for enter 

 prise will not take the risk of great losses unless there is a chance of 

 large gains. While the income of the salaried man is occasionally 

 advanced, and then for long periods remains unchanged, the profits 

 of enterprise come in waves. In seasons of prosperity profits in many 

 enterprises swell with a dramatic swiftness while rents and wages 

 move tardily upward. Then again for years profits fall to a level 

 hardly exceeding a low interest on the capital invested or leave many 

 businesses for a time with a loss. 



B. Profits and the Assumption of Risk 



283. THE FARMER'S RISKS 1 

 BY JAMES WILSON 



The farmer supplies the capital for production and takes the risk 

 of his losses; his crops are at the mercy of drought, and flood, and 

 heat, and frost, to say nothing of noxious insects and blighting dis- 

 eases. He supplies hard, exacting, unremitting labor. A degree and 

 range of information and intelligence are demanded by agriculture 

 which are hardly equaled in any other occupation. Then there is the 

 risk of overproduction and disastrously low prices. From beginning 

 to end the farmer must steer dextrously to escape perils to his profits 

 and indeed to his capital on every hand. 



284. THE WILL TO TAKE CHANCES' 

 BY H. A. MILLIS 



The strong desire of the Japanese to lease land is explained by 

 several facts. In the first place, the members of this race do not like 

 to work for wages, are ambitious, and desire to establish themselves 



1 Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture, 1910, p. 26. 



* Adapted from Reports of the Immigration Commission, Vol. XXIII, 82-84, 86. 



