24 OUR USE OF THE LAND 



city to the country. You can get this information from the 

 headquarters of your city or county government. See if you 

 can discover any relation between th movement of people 

 from the city to the country or vice versa, and the value of 

 farm products produced in that region. 



3. If you can get a soils map of the United States, which is a 

 map showing the major types of soil in the United States, see 

 if you can trace on this map the route followed by the majority 

 of the early settlers in your region when they came from the 

 eastern seaboard. Does this route follow any particular type 

 of soil? 



4. Check up at home and find out just what food you eat in 

 a week. Now find out from some older person how your list 

 compares with what was eaten some twenty-five years ago. 

 How would this change in diet affect the farm problem? 



5. It has been said that 50 per cent of the people of the world 

 go to bed hungry. Make a list of what you consider to be the 

 reasons for this. 



6. Many of the older towns in the United States were named 

 so because of certain characteristics of the land. In New Eng 

 land, open fields were much sought after. Hence when the set 

 tlers found fields they were apt to give the town some such 

 name as Deerfield, Springfield, or Greenfield. Black walnut trees 

 growing on river-bottom land was a sign of good soil to the 

 Pennsylvania-Germans. Hence in Pennsylvania there is a town 

 called Walnut Bottom. See if you can find place names in your 

 neighborhood which indicate some quality of the land. Check 

 up to see if the land still has this quality. 



7. Many early settlers as they moved westward followed the 

 line of good soils, rather than the more direct and easy routes. 

 As a general rule the farmers followed the soils while the 

 tradesmen, artisans, and hunters took direct routes like the 

 rivers. Find out how the first settlers came to your region. 

 Does the way they came indicate their reason for coming? 



