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50 profits.” How successful farmers frittered away their resources by buying wild-cat stocks is notorious. In brief, the farmers of this country behaved during the boom with the same short-sightedness as other members of the capitalistic class, but on the whole with less intelligence.

The situation in agriculture in the United States is really more serious than appears on the face of things. Nearly one third of the estimated physical wealth of the country is counted in the farms together with their buildings, live stock and equipment. I have in my earlier work, and in other chapters of this one, pointed out how recent economic conditions have been, and are, causing the owners of property to let it run down owing to their being unable to keep it up, this being one of the serious consequences of labor getting a larger and larger share of the national income. With the share of property being uneconomically diminished and with labor squandering much of its proceeds in the enjoyment of a higher scale of living the national balance sheet will be bound to show that to a large extent the improved living of some of the people has been at the expense of the national principal. In this the devouring automobile has played a great part in the life of all people alike.

The conception of consumption of principal is not easily grasped. Even when it is comprehended experienced persons find difficulty in recognizing when it is happening. One of the serious duties of the consulting engineer is to make the corporation president see that his profits are not really what he imagines, owing to his failure to allow for consumption of plant. We are all prone to such blindness. In national economics