20 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



Granted that farm tenancy had undesirable social consequences, the 

 soil depletion practices that prevailed throughout the nineteenth century 

 can hardly be chalked up to tenancy alone. Farm owners as well as tenants 

 were responsible for this. The extensive, as opposed to the intensive, type 

 of farming that was practiced encouraged a "mining"' of the soil, and the 

 resulting exhaustion helped to bring down the yield per acre. "This lessen- 

 ing of soil fertility," declared the Country Life Commission appointed by 

 President Roosevelt in 1908, "is marked in every part of the United States, 

 even in the richest lands of the prairies. It marks the pioneer stage of land 

 usage. It has now become an acute national danger, and the economic, 

 social, and political problems arising out of it must at once receive the 

 best attention of statesmen." 31 



And yet American agriculture in the first decade of the twentieth cen- 

 tury, particularly in the Middle West, gave the appearance of great pros- 

 perity. "The value of the farm products," wrote Secretary of Agriculture 

 James Wilson in his annual report for the year 1909, "is so incomprehen- 

 sibly large that it has become merely a row of figures." 32 "There has 

 never been a time," declared the Country Life Commission, "when the 

 American farmer was as well off as he is to-day, when we consider not 

 only his earning power, but the comforts and advantages he may secure." 3 

 According to another observer, "One American harvest would buy the 

 kingdom of Belgium, king and all; two would buy Italy; three would 

 buy Austria-Hungary; and five, at a spot-cash price, would take Russia 

 from the czar." 34 In short, the farmers, tenants and landlords alike, were 

 making money. Farm labor was fully employed and at what, for the times, 

 were considered high wages. Prosperity showed itself in the improved 

 character of farm homes, often surrounded by attractive lawns and 

 gardens, in the multiplication of better barns and farm buildings, in the 

 sanitary water supplies and plumbing equipment that farmers were be- 

 ginning to enjoy, in the increasing availability of good reading matter on 

 farm tables, and in the farmers' demand for better educational facilities 



31. Ibid., XXXIII (September 4, 1908), p. 1061; Senate Document 705, 60 Con- 

 gress, 2 session, pp. 38, 41. 



32. U. S. Dept. Agri., Yearboo^, 1909, p. 9. 



33. Senate Document 705, 60 Congress, 2 session, p. 21. 



34. H. N. Casson, in Wallaces' Farmer, XXXIII (July 10, 1908), p. 871. 



