We can speak of progress, then, only when these individuals secure a better use of wealth in some way. It may be by accumulation through saving from the full years for the empty, as older communities can endure a drought with little suffering, while pioneers are ruined. It may be by an increased product for a given exertion, as illustrated by every labor-saving implement upon the farm or in the factory. It may be by lessening exertion for a given product, as in the devices of kitchen and dairy to make tasks lighter. It may be in better distribution of the total product through readier and fairer exchanges of services or products, as happens with every improvement in transportation and every means for fairer understanding in a bargain. Lastly, it may be in more economical expenditure for common wants, as in maintaining government machinery. Usually, progress has been marked along several of these lines at once, if not all of them. There is reason in the statement of Charles Francis Adams that the last century far exceeds the gain of a thousand years before. _Production, distribution, consumption._—Full consideration of rural wealth as related to welfare must first give the principles upon which wealth is produced, including exchange with all its machinery; for the marketing of produce is today one of the chief steps in securing wealth by farming. The thrifty farmer of today is the man of most business tact and energy, who uses most approved means of raising, handling and marketing his goods. It also requires a careful study of principles upon which any product of exertions, where more than one person has contributed toward the whole, can be fairly shared between the producers, however they have helped. A farmer is as thoroughly interested in problems of rent, interest and profits, if not in wages, as any other worker for wealth or welfare. It further involves the study of economic uses for wealth, private and public, since no wealth has found the true reason for its existence till the uses to which it is put are known. This includes all questions upon the economic functions of government, the ends to be served, and the raising and handling of revenues. If any patriots need to know for what, how and in what measure their country is dependent upon their own resources, it is the farmers, whose homes make the bulk of the land we love, whose children furnish the bone and sinew of industry, and whose interests are most sensitive to misdirected energy in public administration. _Security in stable government._—Agriculture, of all industries, can flourish in that country alone where personal and property rights are fully understood and respected, where claims are equitably adjusted by a stable government, and where taxes are properly apportioned and revenues economically expended. PART I. PRODUCTIVE INDUSTRIES: ANALYSIS OF AIMS, FORCES, MEANS AND METHODS. Chapter I. Aims Of Industry.