Cooperative Work with Columbia University 483 



THE OUTLOOK FOR FARMERS IN THE EAST 



Beverly T. Galloway 



Dean, State Ck)llege of Agriculture, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 



The subject assigned to me, " The Outlook for Farmers in the 

 East," is intended, as I understand it, to have certain limitations. 

 You have already had presented in tliis series of lectures, discus- 

 sions on various types of specialized farming, such as fruit grow- 

 ing, truck farming, greenhouse gardening, specialized milk pro- 

 duction, and the like. I take it that I am expected to speak on the 

 outlook for the general farmer in the East. 



By " general farmer " we mean the man that expects to get his 

 living from a combination of staple crops and animals. After all, 

 this is the type of farming that, in this country at least, must be 

 regarded as the bulwark of our future success as a nation and as a 

 free and enlightened rural people. Extreme specialization in 

 agriculture, intensive cultivation, and high yields per acre usually 

 presuppose labor conditions that would not be tolerated in Amer- 

 ica. All these things are found in China and Japan, in parts of 

 India, and in some portions of the tropics. While a high state of 

 manual skill has been attained in these countries, as is evidenced 

 by the quantity of food produced per acre and per man, man him- 

 self has been reduced to something just a little above the beasts of 

 the field. Excepting such specialized-crop farmers as we find in 

 the South, where cotton is grown, and in the Northwest, where 

 wheat is produced year after year, nine-tenths of our farming is 

 general farming and should remain so. 



Before we can intelligently consider the present outlook for 

 farmers in the East, we must develop a sort of background for 

 conditions as we find them today. Beginning early in the period 

 between 1860 and 1870, there was a very remarkable and unusual 

 development in all the agricultural work of this country. The 

 Civil War brought about results that greatly diminished the sup- 

 ply of labor. There was a remarkable development of agricul- 

 tural work in the Middle West and North. About this time the 

 Union Pacific Railway was opened, and a little earlier the Home- 

 stead Law was passed. The Union Pacific Railway and the great 

 improvement in other transportation facilities, as well as the vast 



