62 OUR USE OF THE LAND 



Thus a vicious circle begins. The more wheat he must grow, 

 the less he can grow, as the soil becomes less and less fertile. 

 Many of the larger commercial farms survive because they 

 can afford to go through several bad years without mining the 

 fertility of the soil. But the smaller commercial farmer usually 

 cannot coast along until prices rise. His only hope is to be able 

 to plant enough wheat, or corn, or cotton to pay his living 

 costs, regardless of the price for which he can sell them. He 

 does mine the fertility of his soil. And when that fertility is 

 gone, his farm sinks to the level of sub'marginal land. Anyone 

 who has seen the tar'paper shack of the sub'marginal farmer 

 of the Northwest, the tumbledown cabin of the southern share' 

 cropper, and the acres of desert which the dry farmer has left 

 behind him knows that it is the farmer who loses. 



SECTION II 

 GOVERNMENT POLICIES ON LAND USE 



Thus far we have written about what happened to the 

 American farmer and his land. The next point is, why did it 

 happen? Why did the history of American agriculture follow 

 one pattern rather than another? 



There were two major forces which shaped the pattern of 

 our farm land use. The first was the attitude of the people who 

 used the land. They thought of it as an inexhaustible resource. 

 It never occurred to them that there would ever be a time 

 when there would not be enough good land to go around. 



Coupled with this belief in the unlimited amount of good 

 soil was a passion to own land. The people who settled the 

 United States believed that liberty could be had by owning 

 land. To them it was a source of both freedom and of food. 

 This faith in the ownership of land has continued to the pres 

 ent day. Unfortunately, it is little more than a belief for the 

 42 per cent of the farmers who now must live on farms that 

 they rent. 



