ed percentage upon the value of sales. Most
farmers in estimating the results of a year's labor count their own
services, at the price of a hand, as a part of the cost of their products,
and distinguish as profits the surplus of product above all expenditures.
Thus a farmer may estimate as outgo the interest on capital invested, the
wear and tear of machinery, the produce consumed upon the farm, the taxes
paid to the government, and the wages to all who labor, including himself
and his family. Any return from his products beyond enough to meet these
outgoes he will consider profits. These will reward him for extra
foresight and contrivance in management and marketing, as well as risk
arising from possibility of failure in his plans, destruction of his crop
or stock, fluctuations in price, and uncertainty of collection for his
sales. Such risks and exertions every independent worker assumes. Usually
the exertions are impossible to the inexperienced, and the risks cannot be
taken without accumulated capital or a credit established upon well-known
character and ability. This fact naturally limits the number of
competitors for profits. The effect is clearly illustrated in the
difference between an ordinary farm hand and the renter of a farm. Few
farmers would encourage the best of their farm hands to take the burden of
risks and care implied in renting. The successful farm renter requires
abilities and means, gained only by experience and accumulation.

_Wages vary with abilities employed._--The variation of wages among
different classes of workmen in the same calling is universally recognized
as dependent upon the powers employed. The strictly operative labor is
usually paid by the hour, day or week, the terms varying with the supposed
strength or skill exerted. Executive duties commanding monthly or yearly
salaries vary with the total amount of responsibility implied, the large
establishment requiring greater abilities than the small one. The strain
of responsibility increases in some degree with the number of operative
laborers employed, and successful oversight of many hands may be essential
to their profitable employment. In that case the salary of the overseer
gains something of the nature of profits, since the manager gauges the pay
by profits expected. If, as in great stock companies, a manager is hired
at a stipulated salary, his personal abilities, as tested by
accomplishment, are likely to be the sole gauge of wage