less  time  is  required  in  order  to  bring  the  thing  into  a  merchant-
able condition,  for  the  saving  of  time  is  a  saving  of  interest,  risk,
and  profit.  Thus  in  the  breeding  and  management  of  animals,  the
agriculturist  whose  skill  shortens  the  period  to  one-third  in  which,
stock  is  brought  to  market,  gains  at  first  the  whole  profit  of  his
economy,  till  the  skill  being  diffused  among  all  farmers,  his  advan-
tage is  absorbed  in  rent.  2.  It  may  be  that  what  has  hitherto-
been  intractable  by  any  known  laws  of  nature  is  found  to  yield  on
the  discovery  of  a  new  law  to  which  it  is  amenable.  Such  was  the
case  with  those  iron  ores  which  contained  phosphorus,  arsenic,
and  sulphur,  and  were  of  no  economical  value  till  the  discovery  of
Bessemer's  process.  In  general  nothing  has  been  more  noteworthy
than  the  economy  of  what  has  been  conceived  up  to  recent  periods
to  be  mere  waste.  3.  It  may  be  that  the  economy  is  in  the  process-
At  present,  by  the  improvement  of  furnaces,  a  ton,  say  of  pig  iron,
requires  not  more  than  a  third  of  the  coal  or  coke  it  required-
twenty  years  ago  in  order  to  make  it  merchantable.  4.  It  may  be
in  the  manipulation  of  the  product.  It  is  not  easy  to  define  raw
materials.  Under  certain  circumstances,  what  seem  to  be  finished
goods  are  raw  materials  for  another  product,  if  they  are  required,
in  order  to  achieve  a  further  economic  result.  Clothing  in  a  wax-
work exhibition  are  raw  materials  ;  to  most  of  us  they  are  finished
goods  which  have  a  final  and  no  ulterior  economic  use.  But  the
processes  by  which  products  are  handled  for  one  stage  or  the  other
of  a  merchantable  article,  are  the  subject  of  incessant  improvement
and  modification.  Now  in  all  these  four  forms  of  diminished  cost,
and  I  am  far  from  having  exhausted  them,  no  appreciable  develop-
ment has  been  or  could  be  traceable  tUl  comparatively  recent
times.
