CHAPTER I

COMMON SENSE FARMING



The three things essential to all wealth production are land,
labor, and capital.

"The dry land" was created before there appeared the man, the
laborer, to work it. With his bare hands the worker could have
done nothing with the land either as a grazer, a farmer or a
miner. From the very first he needed capital, that is, the tools
to work the land.

The first tool may have been a pole, one end hardened in the fire,
or a combined hoe and axe, made by fastening with wythes, a
suitable stone to the end of a stick; but no matter the kind of
tool, or the means of producing it, it represented capital, and
the man who owned this tool was a capitalist as compared with the
man without any such appliance.

From the land, with the aid of labor and capital, comes wealth,
which in a broad way may be defined as something having an
exchangeable value.

Before the appearance of money all wealth changed hands through
barter. The wealth in the world to-day is immeasurably greater
than all the money in it. The business of the world, particularly
between nations, is still carried on through exchange, the