Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/307

Rh a carpenter to make a specialty of house-building; as furniture was needed, another carpenter devoted his time to making chairs and tables. Likewise the weaver differentiated into the maker of carpets and the maker of cloths for wear; and as the village grew there evolved the tinner, the harness-maker, and so on. The followers of each vocation thrived because the members of the community found it more economical to purchase their better products than to make similar articles themselves. This differentiation or diversification of industries heightened the contrast between the life of the community and barbarism, or, in other words, increased the degree of its civilization because, by reason of the particular skill, training, and facilities of the various individuals who ministered to their various wants, the members of the community became better housed, better clothed, better supplied with the conveniences that contributed to the more rapid and efficient performance of their work and to the comfort of their homes.

The demand for a particular kind of work brought an increase in the number of individuals engaged in that work by causing an established artisan to increase the number of his employees, or by bringing an increasing number of men into that line of industry, some of whom continued to work separately, the direct servautsservants [sic] of their patrons, while others formed other organizations of employer and employee or employees. And thus arose competition, members of a community patronizing this or that tradesman or artisan in preference to another as the quality of his work or merchandise, his prices or accessibility, were the more suitable. Competition tended to secure to the members of a community a share of the benefit of the decreasing cost of production, different producers vying with each other to retain or increase their custom either by bettering the quality of their articles or decreasing the price, or both. With increasing ease of communication there was increased competition, artisans, in the course of their work, going more readily from one place to another, and merchantable articles were distributed throughout an extending territory.

With increasing ease of communication and transportation the localization of production was also affected. While many kinds of production remained tolerably evenly diffused over extensive areas, that which depended upon extremely favorable conditions tended to concentrate at localities so favored. For example, in soil especially adapted for grazing, a farmer ceased to plant wheat when he could obtain the wheat more cheaply by purchase from a distant farmer, to whom he could sell the flesh and hides of cattle raised on his meadows. And workmen engaged in preparing the products of cattle tended to concentrate near the grazing regions, while millers would erect their mills near the wheat