NUMBER OF PERSONS ENGAGED 3 



states the Census Report, "the agricultural industry, so far as can 

 be measured by statistics as to the number of farms, farm land, 

 and improved land, more than kept pace with the population." 

 But it has failed to do so since. "The population increased 116.3 

 per cent between 1850 and 1880, while the number of farms in- 

 creased 151.9 per cent; but from 1880 to 1910 the population 

 increased 83.4 per cent, the number of farms only 58.7 per cent, 

 and the improved farm land only 68 per cent." 



It is true that the value of farm property showed a gain of one 

 hundred per cent in the ten-year period from 1900 to 1910, increas- 

 ing from some $20,000,000,000 to $40,000,000,000. Yet this gain 

 of $20,000,000,000 is rather an illusory gain, since $15,000,000,000 

 of it represent merely an increase in land value and no added 

 investment of capital whatever. This "unearned increase" in 

 value therefore is a detriment rather than a benefit to the coun- 

 try at. large, and is perhaps an evil to the farmers themselves. 

 For it makes farms constantly higher in price to the would-be 

 farmer and hence ownership more difficult to attain. It means 

 more renters and more mortgages. For more and more it is 

 becoming true that the farmers do not own the farms. The 

 city investor or speculator or the "retired farmer" is becom- 

 ing the farm owner, and is therefore getting the benefit of the 

 $15,000,000,000 increases in farm land value. And the farmer 

 who is a tenant is helping pay the penalty. The report of the 

 Thirteenth Census tells us, "It may be noted that at least since 

 1880 (and probably further back also) the farms operated by 

 tenants have in each decade increased faster than those operated 

 by owners " (Fig. 1). 



Number of Persons Engaged. There has been a gradual in- 

 crease in the number of persons engaged in agriculture, manu- 

 facturing, professional service, domestic and personal service, and 

 in transportation. But the proportion engaged in agriculture quite 

 naturally shows a gradual decline. In 1870, 48 per cent of the 

 workers were in agriculture; in 1910, only 33 per cent. There are 

 approximately six million farms in the United States, and allowing 

 to each farm a family of five persons, we have thirty million of our 

 population living in the open country. There remain therefore 

 over seventy million who are living in cities and villages. The 

 significance of these figures is important from the standpoint of 

 an agrarian party or an agrarian policy in the United States. Any 

 such a party with a policy of increasing agricultural profits at the 

 expense of the consumer would be in a very hopeless minority. 



