706 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



But why is it that in the distribution of the wealth that has 

 thus been created the cities have absorbed such a disproportion- 

 ate amount ? An answer to this question will involve an analysis 

 of the tendencies of steam as a wealth-producer. In this way we 

 may hope to understand also whether the cities have prospered 

 at the expense of the farmer, or whether their progress is due 

 to the operation of normal economic law. 



i. Steam as a motive power in the operations of the farm 

 has never admitted of direct practical application to any consider- 

 able extent. Except in the work of threshing, it has been ex- 

 ploited to only a slight degree in farm economy. Consequently, 

 the volume of farm produce has not been greatly increased or 

 its cost of production very much cheapened through the influence 

 of steam-driven machinery. Indirectly, however, the use of steam 

 in transportation and in the manufacture of farm implements 

 has affected agriculture in both these respects, and in numerous 

 others so important as to call for separate treatment in the 

 following section of this study. 



2. It is in pursuits other than those of the farm that we 

 must look for the whereabouts of the 16,940,000 horse power 

 of steam which the table given above shows to have existed in 

 the United States in 1895. The process by which such an enor- 

 mous amount of power has been absorbed in the industries of 

 modern life is a matter of no little interest. In this connection, 

 it is pertinent to observe that the utilization of steam made the era 

 of invention a necessity. Its employment as a motive power stim- 

 ulated the inventive ingenuity of man. As a consequence, nu- 

 merous ingenious contrivances have been put to work, propelled 

 by an invisible force, so cheapening production that commodities 

 once luxuries for the rich have come to be almost necessaries of 

 life to the masses of the people. Consumption has thus been 

 so enormously increased that employments once offering work to 

 only a few now demand hosts of toilers. Compare, for example, 

 the business of transportation before and since the time of the 

 railway. Steam power, steel rails, and other inventions have 

 rendered the swift and certain movement of persons and com- 

 modities one of the daily necessities of the multitude. Since 



