THE NEW FARMER 59 



become competitors of the flocks that feed upon 

 the green Vermont mountains and the Ohio 

 hills. The plains of Argentina grow wheat for 

 London. Russia, Siberia, and India pour a con- 

 stant stream of golden grain into the industrial 

 centers of Western Europe, and the price of 

 American wheat is fixed in London. These 

 forces have produced still another kind of compe- 

 tition; namely, specialization among farmers. 

 Localities particularly adapted to special crops 

 are becoming centers where skill and intelligence 

 bring the industry to its height. The truck- 

 farming of the South Atlantic region, the fruit 

 growing of western Michigan, the butter 

 factories of Wisconsin and Minnesota, have 

 crowded almost to suffocation the small market- 

 gardener of the northern town, the man with a 

 dozen peach trees, and the farmer who keeps 

 two cows and trades the surplus butter for 

 calico. These things have absolutely forced 

 progress upon the farmer. It is indeed a 

 "struggle for life." Out of it comes the " sur- 

 vival of the fittest," and the fittest is the new 

 farmer. 



But along with competition has come oppor- 

 tunity. Indeed, out of these very facts that 

 have made competition so strenuous spring the 



