Capital from an economic standpoint is that wealth which produces farther wealth, or simply aids to create farther wealth. A needle is capital, because it aids to [SN: CAPITAL THIRD FACTOR OF WEALTH.] make a shirt that costs more than the material used for it. A sewing machine is capital of more effective kind than the needle used by hand, because it aids to produce more wealth than the tailor or the seamstress can produce without it. A lathe is capital, because it not only shapes the round forms of any material more accurately than [SN: MACHINERY, TOOLS, ARTIFICIAL WEALTH.] the artizan would ever be able to make without it, but it greatly saves his time on every piece of the work; thus saving time it aids in producing more wealth. A factory, as a whole (including the building and machinery), is capital, because all the machinery, all tools and instruments used in it produce farther wealth from the raw materials, and serve as sources of income to the owner of this property. Under the care of the stock-raiser, cattle are capital, because they grow and multiply; but the meat or beef is utility, because it may be unproductively consumed.[50] Agricultural implements, as well as the fertilizers, like guano, phosphates and many others are capital, because they increase fertility and increase the produce of land, which makes a greater income in favor of its owner. A thousand different machineries and special instruments might be introduced here to show that each one of them has been invented for the purpose of aiding to create more wealth out of less wealth. And that all of them and every one, when used by an owner of wealth, is a definite source of income and of profit to him, because it aids his own skill and energy to obtain greater returns in exchange for his labor and mind, than he can obtain without it. But the most effective factor in aiding to produce more wealth and a much greater income for an owner of wealth is the energy of steam or any other mechanical force, applicable to various forms of labor [SN: MECHANICAL FORCE; INCREASE OF STEAM.] and completely obedient to the bidding of man. “Steam power has increased in the United States from 3½-millions, in 1860, to 17-millions horse power in 1895; while in Great Britain and Ireland it has increased from 2½- to 13-millions; Germany from ⅞- to 7⅔-millions, and in France from 1 to 5-millions horse-power. The increase of this capital has been most manifest in manufactures,” says Dr. Henderson.[51] But it should be remarked at once that no one of the families worth below $5,000 could apply these millions of horsepower of steam force upon their properties. This energy has all the time been a profitable source of great income in favor of the families that made the wealthiest group in the tables of statistics, whereas the others have had but little crumbs of its increase of wealth. The mechanical force, as every one knows, is in service of the capitalists.