The Economist strode and the Squire plodded on over the wet grass, and it gave the Squire pleasure to listen to the things which the Economist said, though these were quite incomprehensible to him. They came to a place where, after one had pushed through a tall bramble hedge and stuck in a very muddy hidden ditch, one saw before one on the farther side, screened in everywhere and surrounded by a belt or frame of low, scraggy trees and stunted bushes, a large deserted field. In colour it was very pale green and brown; myriads of dead thistles stood in it; there were nettles, and, in the damper hollows, rushes growing. The Economist took this field and turned his voluble talk upon it. He appreciated that much he said during their walk, being sometimes of an abstract and always of a technical nature, had missed the mind of his friend; he therefore determined upon a concrete instance and waved his vigorous long arm towards the field and said: “Now, take this field, for instance.” “Yes,” said the Squire humbly. “Now, this field,” said the Economist, “_of itself_ has no value at all.” “No,” said the Squire. “_That_,” said the Economist with increasing earnestness, tapping one hand with two fingers of the other, “that’s what the layman must seize first ... every error in economics comes from not appreciating that things in themselves have no value. For instance,” he went on, “you would say that a diamond had value, wouldn’t you ... a large diamond?” The Squire, hoping to say the right thing, said: “I suppose not.” This annoyed the Economist, who answered a little testily: “I don’t know what you mean. What _I_ mean is that the diamond has no value in itself....” “I see,” broke in the Squire, with an intelligent look, but the Economist went on rapidly as though he had not spoken: “It only has a value because it has been transposed in some way from the position where man could not use it to a position where he can. Now, you would say that land could not be transposed, but it can be made from _less_ useful to man, _more_ useful to man.” The Squire admitted this, and breathed a deep breath. “Now,” said the Economist, waving his arm again at the field, “take this field, for instance.” There it lay, silent and sullen under the mist. There was no noise of animals in the brakes, the dirty boundary stream lay sluggish and dead, and the rank weeds had lost all colour. One could note the parallel belts of rounded earth where once--long, long ago--this field had been ploughed. No other evidence was there of any activity at all, and it looked as though man had not seen it for a hundred years. “Now,” said the Economist, “what is the value of this field?”