THE NEW AGRICULTURE 5 



a half ton of meat each year. Under the new systems of farm- 

 ing fewer people are needed on the farm to produce a living 

 for the world than formerly and more people are engaged in 

 nonproductive occupations and live in town. For example, a 

 century ago more than nine tenths of the people of the United 

 States lived on farms and were directly dependent upon agri- 

 culture for a living. In 1910 about one third of the people 

 were engaged in agricultural occupations. Formerly a farm 

 supported a family and produced a small surplus to supply the 

 needs of the few people who lived in town. To-day each farm 

 is required to support three families the one that lives on 

 the farm and tills its fields, and two that live in town. 



4. Overproduction and high cost of living. Nevertheless, 

 there was an actual overproduction of food closely following the 

 bringing of the prairies of the Middle West, Northwest, and 

 Pacific West under the plow, when the ox team was supplanted 

 by the locomotive and the grain cradle was displaced by the 

 reaper. Then for the first time the world had bread enough 

 and to spare. An era of low cost of living was ushered in, and 

 we foolishly believed it was permanent. Consumption has again 

 caught up with production, however, and in two decades food 

 prices have risen from the lowest to the highest point in history. 

 In all probability the present high cost of living is permanent. 

 There is no longer an unoccupied "out West" with its favorable 

 climate and fertile soil. Increase in population and higher 

 standards of living will easily absorb all the increase in produc- 

 tion that we shall be likely to make by the adoption of better 

 methods of tillage and by the use of better plants and animals. 



5. High man-yields should go with high acre-yields. The 

 acre-yield in America under extensive systems of agriculture is 

 low, but the man-yield is high. In European and Asiatic coun- 

 tries under systems of intensive farming, the acre-yield is high 

 and the man-yield is low. For example, the acre-yield of wheat 

 in America is little more than 14 bushels, while in Germany it 

 is 31 bushels, in France almost 30 bushels, and in Japan 24 

 bushels. But the yearly income for each farm family in America 



