iCDDLE WESTERN AGBICULTURAL HISTORY 321 



have appeared as articles and bulletins, but thus far, there are 

 no adequate historical studies of this phase of the subject. The 

 fact that farm families of half a century or more ago receive<:l 

 virgin and productive land free from the government and yet 

 were unable to hold it indicates that something more than the 

 need of low-cost credit is involved. Although the recent polic> 

 of stabilizing fann prices has probably helped, discerning studies 

 of the beginnings of tenancy and the economic and human factors 

 accentuating its increase may indicate that it is undesirable to 

 attempt to resuscitate individualistic farming and may justify 

 the current ex|K'riments in new methods of farm economy. Prob- 

 ably the solutions of this problem will include limitations on the 

 right to alienate holdings. In this connection one should also 

 note the need of studies on the vast differences in Uie economic 

 and social status of American farmers. The United States still 

 proudly boasts that its tillers of the soil are farmers, not peas- 

 ants, but accurate knowledge of the rural population in some 

 areas would dispel any delusions that such is uniformly true. 

 Some farmers are entirely capable of coping with changing con- 

 ditions, while others need guidance and aid in varying degrees. 

 The economic geographers delineate tlie United States into a 

 number of agricultural regions and indicate that, generally 

 speaking, the various crops and livestock now dominate in the 

 geographic areas best suited to produce them.*' Today the Mid- 

 dle West is represented on these maps by the American portion 

 of the forest and hay region (the cut-over lands of Michigan, 

 Wisconsin, and Minnesota), the western half of the hay and 



^•OliTer E. Baker, in his articles on "Agricultural Regions of North America," 

 Boonomie Geography, 11 (1926), 459-493, III (1927), 50 86, 309-339, 447-465, FV 

 (1928), 44-73, 399 433, V (1929), 36 69, VI (1930), 166-190. 278-308. VII (1931), 

 109-153. 325 364, VIII (1932), 325-377, IX (1933), 167-197, and also in his other 

 writings differentiates thirteen regions. In addition to those given in the text, the 

 regions are: humid subtropical crops belt; cotton belt; Middle Atlantic trucking 

 region; grazing and irrigated crops region; Columbia plateau wheat region; Pacific 

 sabtropiral crops region; aud Nurth Pacific luiv, pasture, aiid forest region. 



The "R^'gionalized Ttjws of Farming in tlie United States" map, issued br the 

 planning dirision ut the Agricultural .\djustmeut Administration, delineates thirteen 

 main rett^ons and one hundred sub- regions. 



The "Tjpea-of- Panning Areas in the United States, 1980" map, prepared by the 

 United States Bureau of Census in cooperation with the United States BurMUi of 

 Agricultural EeoBomiea, delineatee 514 regions. 



