42 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



Such calculations are good as indicating the greater crop area 

 which the average person finds it profitable to tend when aided by 

 machine power. One needs to be on guard, however, against 

 taking them as indexes of the greater effectiveness of man- 

 labor, due to the use of machinery ; for, obviously, they take no 

 account of the character of the cultivation whether intensive or 

 extensive. Construed as indexes of effectiveness, these figures 

 show that the effectiveness of the average worker in the North 

 Central, South Central, and Western divisions has been much 

 increased during the period from 1880 to 1900, while that of the 

 average worker in the North Atlantic and South Atlantic divisions 

 has actually become less. Such a conclusion would be clearly 

 wrong. There is good reason for believing that the effectiveness 

 of the average farm worker in each of these divisions, 1 and even 

 in the New England States alone, 2 was, in all likelihood, very much 

 greater in 1900 than in 1880. 



If we take the value of product per person engaged in agricul- 

 ture as an index of effectiveness under the methods in use in 1880 

 and in 1900, we shall find that the effectiveness of the average 

 worker in the United States was greater, by nearly 60 per cent, 8 

 in 1900 than in 1880. 



The census of 1870 did not report crop acreage at all, and the 

 value of agricultural products was reported in connection with 

 the value of betterments, so that no showing of the relative 

 effectiveness of agricultural workers, in 1870 and in 1900, based 

 either on crop acreage or on value of products, can be made ; but 

 judged by the quantity of cereal product reported, per person 

 engaged in farm work (i.e. farmers, planters, overseers, and agri- 

 cultural laborers), the effectiveness of the average farm worker in 

 1900 was greater than in 1870 by nearly 86 per cent. 4 The data 

 at hand do not appear to admit of any similar showing as between 

 the year 1900 and any date prior to 1870. 



1 See page 82. 2 See page 54. 



3 Exactly 58.4 per cent. For value of product per person engaged in agricul- 

 ture in 1880 and 1900, see table on page 82. 



4 Exactly 85.8 per cent. The cereal product per worker, as above, in 1S70, 

 was 236.5 bushels; in 1900 it was 439.6 bushels. 



