164 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



land; (3) a shift from less productive crops per acre to the more 

 productive; and (4) a shift from less productive to more productive 

 livestock per unit of feed consumed. 



The changes that will occur in agricultural technique will depend 

 upon economic conditions and the introduction of new methods and 

 the discoveries of science. It may be expected that development of 

 new methods and new discoveries of science will continue. The 

 extent to which such developments will affect agriculture will depend 

 in an important degree upon economic conditions. The relation of 

 the prices of agricultural products to the prices of the items that 

 enter into their production and the relation of the prices of the various 

 cost items to one another will largely determine the changes in 

 technique actually adopted. The changes that may occur in this 

 complex of economic conditions and technical developments and the 

 effect of these on land requirements are very uncertain. If, for 

 example, horses should become a more economic source of power 

 than tractors, land now used for the production of human food or 

 for export products would be required to feed the extra horses. A 

 much larger agricultural area, therefore, would be required. 



Of all the factors affecting the future land requirements for agri- 

 culture, perhaps the most difficult to appraise are the future changes 

 in economic conditions and in technology. If these economic and 

 technical forces continue to act as they did during the decade 1920 

 to 1930, it will not be necessary to increase appreciably the total area 

 of agricultural land or of crop land to provide the increased agricul- 

 tural products required by the expected increase in population. If 

 these economic and technical changes do not act as forcefully as 

 during the last decade, but are comparable to the average for the two 

 decades 1910 to 1930, it would be necessary by 1940 to increase the 

 total agricultural area by possibly 20,000,000 acres and the crop area 

 by 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 acres and by 1950 to increase the agricul- 

 tural area by about 35,000,000 acres and the crop area by 14,000,000 

 to 18,000,000 acres. 



It is probably better to plan for much less than the maximum in- 

 crease, as shown above, in both agricultural land and crop land. 

 Expansion can be brought about rather quickly if conditions point 

 to the need for more agricultural land, and the social costs of an 

 error of underestimation are not likely to be so great as from an 

 overestimate. It is more difficult to grow trees than to remove them, 

 and it is easier to secure new settlers than to absorb the losses from 

 labor and capital directed in a mistaken enterprise. There is a con- 

 siderable loss in reclaiming and improving land if that land is not 

 needed, and there is loss in maintaining schools and roads for 1 or 2 

 settlers where a dozen or more farms had been expected, 



FUTURE ABANDONMENT IN ORIGINALLY FORESTED 

 REGIONS EAST OF THE GREAT PLAINS 



It appears reasonable to expect that in the future as in the past 

 some agricultural land will be abandoned while other land is being 

 brought into use. This will occur regardless of whether the total 

 area of agricultural land increases, remains stationary, or declines. 

 New land will be brought into use through clearing, through promo- 

 tion of settlement by land-selling agencies, through mechanization 



