and manure which "aid the production" of such increase. The grain and cattle of which he is possessed immediately after harvest is his capital; and his revenue for the twelvemonth, until the next harvest, is the surplus of grain and cattle over and above the amount with which he started. This is disposable for any purpose for which he may desire to use it, leaving him just as well off as he was at the beginning of the year. Whether the man keeps the surplus grain for sowing more land, and the surplus cattle for occupying more pasture; whether he exchanges them for other commodities, such as the use of the land (as rent); or labour (as [175] wages); or whether he feeds himself and his family, in no way alters their nature as revenue, or affects the fact that this revenue is merely disposable capital. That (even apart from etymology) cattle are typical examples of capital cannot be denied ("Progress and Poverty," p. 25); and if we seek for that particular quality of cattle which makes them "capital," neither has the author of "Progress and Poverty" supplied, nor is any one else very likely to supply, a better account of the matter than Adam Smith has done. Cattle are "capital" because they are "stock which yields revenue." That is to say, they afford to their owner a supply of that which he desires to possess. And, in this particular case, the "revenue" is not only desirable, but of supreme importance, inasmuch as it is capable of maintaining human life. The herd yields a revenue of food-stuffs as milk and meat; a revenue of skins; a revenue of manure; a revenue of labour; a revenue of exchangeable commodities in the shape of these things, as well as in that of live cattle. In each and all of these capacities cattle are capital; and, conversely, things which possess any or all of these capacities are capital. Therefore what we find at page 25 of "Progress and Poverty" must be regarded as a welcome lapse into clearness of apprehension:-- "A fertile field, a rich vein of ore, a falling stream which supplies power, may give the possessor advantages [176] equivalent to the possession of capital; but to class such things as capital would be to put an end to the distinction between land and capital."