900 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 522. 



lamps. He then found that the plants on 

 that side of his houses did as well as those 

 on the southern side, the result being that 

 he introduced electric lights in his houses, 

 so that his plants should have the benefit 

 of such lights during the night. The 

 effect of this was that his cucumbers, for 

 instance, grew more rapidly, with more 

 even development, and with a higher grade 

 of tenderness. He sells about ten thousand 

 cucumbers every winter at twenty cents a 

 piece. This discovery was not new with 

 him, for about that time scientific investi- 

 gators in Italy and some other parts of 

 Europe were experimenting in the use of 

 electric light to perfect the growth of vege- 

 tables. 



Afterwards my friend made another dis- 

 covery, not new to the world but new to 

 him, and that was that by sterilizing the 

 soil he could stimulate the growth of plants 

 to maturity, secure freedom from the 

 growth of weeds and the influence of germs 

 in the soil, and anticipate the market. This 

 he did by putting gangs of steam-pipes in 

 the soil about a foot deep, thus absolutely 

 cooking the soil, killing all poisonous germs 

 and all seeds of weed plants, while insects 

 indigenous to the soil and injurious- to the 

 growth of vegetables entirely disappeared. 

 He insists that the soil of any farm, condi- 

 tions being favorable, can be sterilized in 

 the same way, and at small cost, thus re- 

 warding the f aimer by relieving him of 

 much labor now necessary in the cultiva- 

 tion of all kinds of plants and vegetables. 

 Such experimentation must, of course, 

 modify the law of diminishing returns to 

 such a degree as, for a while at least, to 

 rob it of its peculiar influence in increasing 

 cost or retarding the supply from the cul- 

 tivation of certain kinds of land; but, as 

 I have said, the law remains as a law. 



In mechanical productions science has 

 also done much towards modifying the 

 theory, although, of course, there is a limit 



to the power of machinery and to the em- 

 ployment of people that will always pre- 

 serve the principle involved in the law ; 

 but in these directions— in the Malthusian 

 theory of the pressure of population and its 

 accompanying theory of the law of dimin- 

 ishing returns — science has done much to 

 modify the tenets of the older economists. 



The next matter in close relation to the 

 Malthusian theory, and one w;hich has 

 yielded largely to scientific research and the 

 application of scientific principles, is the 

 iron law of wages — that law which pro- 

 vided that the working man should and 

 could receive only that amount of wage 

 which was essential to life merely, just 

 enough to keep body and soul together and 

 to keep the human machine properly lubri- 

 cated for its daily work. This law was for- 

 tified and reinforced by the wage-fund 

 theory. Overcoming the one meant the 

 modification or the complete abrogation of 

 the other. The wage-fund theory did not 

 originate with Malthus. It was suggested 

 by Adam Smith himself, and was developed 

 by his followers ; but by the power of mod- 

 ern scientific analysis it is given up to-day, 

 so far as its original form is concerned, by 

 all economists, although many of them as- 

 sert with some reason that it contains valu- 

 able truth, and, when properly stated, the 

 whole truth. 



As originally stated, the law is that 

 wages, like everything else, are governed 

 by supply and demand, and in the aggre- 

 gate depend upon the proportion of labor- 

 ers to the capital available for employing 

 labor, this capital being denominated a 

 wage fund. Doctor Smith said, in his 

 'Wealth of Nations,' that the demand for 

 those who live by wages, it is evident, can 

 not increase but in proportion to the in- 

 crease of the funds which are destined for 

 the payment of wages. Malthus and Ric- 

 ardo held to this doctrine, but argued that 

 wages could not rise, even by increasing 



