ighest degree, is the invention of reaping machinery.
The inventor has gained riches by his contrivance, but the world has
gained far more by his foresight and ingenuity. Similar energy has been
put into all labor-saving machinery, and still plays an important part in
devising the best uses for it.

Every farmer has a similar need of planning for every field he plows.
There is a certain draft for each horse, a certain speed for the plow, a
certain adjustment of harness to the team, which gives a full return for
the force employed. A failure to find this causes waste. All the effort of
scientific research into causes and conditions of growth or disease of
plants and animals is speculative labor, out of which the next advance of
agriculture must come. The mere operative power of a laborer can be
supplanted by brute force or by machinery, but nothing can ever supplant
the intelligent foresight that invents, plans and devises the end to be
reached, and the ways and the means for reaching it.

The very foundation of any success in farming is clear foresight and
distinct planning for a succession of crops, each to be tended, harvested,
stored and marketed in the very nick of time. The best energy of every
farmer is properly given to finding what crop to raise, how and when to
have it ready for the world that is going to need it. He best meets his
own daily wants when "Mr. Contrivance" stands by him in all his efforts.
This contrivance is the chief exertion of a successful farmer's life.

Chapter IV. Capital Defined And Classified.

_Capital distinguished from wealth._--Whenever material wealth is used not
directly in meeting present wants, but to produce more wealth suited to
future wants, it is called capital. Any store of good things devoted only
to meeting wants as they come is thought of as wealth, as well as possible
capital, since at any time it may be made the means of creating other
wealth to more than take its place. The distinction grows wholly out of
the uses of wealth, not its forms. A horse used, or to be used, as a force
in production by drawing loads is counted as capital; but if used for mere
pleasure-riding is only wealth, which leaves no material return when
consumed. Thus the same horse may, in the hands of a breeder, a trainer,
or a liveryman be capital, but in the hands of a fancier or a pleasure
seeker be only wealth, to be used as wanted.

Wealth in dwellings or public buildings constructed f