THE ESSENTIALS OF AGRICULTURE 



reduced to forty-one minutes. In 1860 the labor invested in a 

 ton of hay was thirty-five and a half hours ; in 1 894 the labor 

 cost of a ton of hay had been reduced to eleven and a half hours. 

 Within the last twenty years the production of wheat in the 

 world has increased almost one half, while the area sown 

 has increased only one fourth. Since 1880 wheat production 



has increased about 66 per 

 cent, while the population 

 has not increased as much 

 as 30 per cent. 



3. Increased production 

 followed by better living. 

 If the people of the world 

 had subsisted for four thou- 

 sand years under the ancient 

 system of agriculture, and 

 if more improvements in 

 methods were made in the 

 last fifty years than in the 

 thousands of years before, 

 the student may wonder 

 what became of the in- 

 creased production and why 

 there was not a serious over- 



FIG. 4. Baron Justus von Liebig production of food. The 



A German scientist who first applied the prin- truth is that Up to the time 



ciples of chemistry to agriculture and discov- f ^ birth Q f the Rew _ 



ered a scientific method of feeding plants c 



culture the world had not 



had enough to eat. Much of the increased output due to better 

 machinery and better methods was absorbed in higher standards 

 of living. When our forefathers were fighting forests, Indians, 

 and poverty, a peck of wheat was a fair yearly allowance of that 

 article of food for a whole family. To-day each person in the 

 United States consumes, on an average, between five and sjx 

 bushels of wheat each year. Meat at that time was scarce and 

 difficult to procure. To-day each family consumes an average of 



