S4 
FIFTEENTH REPORT. 
of what shall prevail that large returns shall be secured to the human 
tanner, or is it to he the ideal that large returns shall be secured for 
the acre of land, is the way in which this problem is usually offered. 
Other things being equal, intensive farming implies a reduced return 
per man to the cultivators of the soil ; extensive farming, the reverse. 
Shall not the vision of the American public policy look rather to the 
large returns to the individual farmer as is the case from the broad 
acres of the English type of agriculture rather than to the large re- 
turns from the individual acre as is the case in the peasant type of 
agriculture as practiced in Belgium and elsewhere on the continent of 
Europe? 
'Phe law of proportionality is also applicable to almost all of the 
operations carried on upon the farm. The original allotment o differ- 
ent parts of the land to different purposes for example, requires a 
proportional distribution between the farmstead on one hand and those 
areas on the other which become the fields and the avenues of communi- 
cation. It is also determinative, as is the case in every other business, 
of the relations which shall subsist between fixed capital and the 
amounts which shall be used for running expenses and also of the gen- 
eral problem of the gross amounts and the particular kinds of machines, 
auxiliary farm enterprises, stock and other equipments which shall 
prevail. 
In no other sphere of farm organization does a better opportunity 
exist for the proper proportioning of things than is the case in the 
establishment of the relations of motive power to the different vehicles 
with which it is to he employed. A vital point in the rivalry, which is 
now taking place, between tractor power and animal power for domin- 
ancy upon the farm, is said to be the comparative facility of each in 
being readily serviceable in a great variety of proportions for use by 
Hie farmer. The multiples and divisions of horse power which can be 
obtained upon the farm by combining or separating teams is said not 
to be practicable when motor tractors are used, and an almost insuper- 
able obstacle in this way is interposed to the serviceableness of the 
latter. The arrangement and number of farm buildings can scarcely be 
satisfactorily accomplished either without a reference to this law of 
proportionality and in the miner aspects of the agricultural art. such 
as the compounding of fertilizers and the arrangement of feeding ra- 
tions and the providing of general farm conveniences, the law of pro- 
portionality is everywhere supreme. From these illustrations, of which 
the economy of the farm would present an almost infinite number did 
not space forbid, it may be readily seen how largely the strategy of 
this occupation involves the law of proportionality and how concisely 
all of the operations of this undertaking may be organized and admin- 
istered from this standpoint. 
From a pedigogical standpoint, this principle of proportionality is 
meritorious through the many problems of proportioning drawn from 
agricultural life which it furnishes for solution. The supporter of the 
problem method of teaching economics finds here an exhaustless field 
of problems, drawn from actual life, from which he may illustrate 
equallv well numerous economic principles and also excellent farm 
practices. The doctrine of proportionality, since it implies coordination, 
develops admirably the notion of the business standpoint as applied 
