102 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES

In this way the problem of what expenditures are, and what
are not, worth making, can be more clearly conceived of
than where produce is not valued at its selling value, or
cultivating effort priced at its cost for hiring. Labour hired
by the day can be applied in greater or less quantity as
prospects of profit may dictate. As to the farmer himself,
he is personally committed to the business, and his efforts
cannot be reasonably considered as supplied at a tariff rate
in the work of theifarm. Whether more or less of capital or
labour should be used must be determined in relation to
its cost and probable returns, and in that cost an extra
charge for the farmer's services does not appear as a
necessary and invariable item. Some contribution to the
farmer's profits may be anticipated, or there would be no
inducement to undertake the risks of borrowing capital and
hiring labour, but the amount of that contribution does not
appear as a charge on the same level as interest on capital
or wages of labour hired. If the farmer cannot look for
profit in taking a lease at a given price, we may assume he
would seek other avenues of employment.
When a contract to hire land at a given annual price
has been made, it is clear that an inducement exists to
undertake any line of expenditure promising returns in
excess of the outlay, and to avoid all in which the excess
is in the contrary sense, and this whether the contract-rent
correspond with the surplus yielded by the land or not.
[f the contract-rent be less than the land turns out to be
capable of yielding, the farmer shares in the advantages of
ownership during the term of his tenancy. If the contractrent
 be greater than can be paid from the land’s products,
the farmer must, if held to his contract, receive an inadequate
 remuneration for his own services, and may have
to trench on capital to provide means for paying his rent.
This may reduce his power of cultivating the soil in the
manner calculated to get from it the best it can give, and
thus add cumulatively to the farmer's distresses.
It is easy to conceive of conditions which may cause
contract-rent to differ from the rent-yielding capacity of the
soil. Thus, an unwillingness to leave a farm which had