16 THE EXHAUSTION OF THE ARABLE LANDS. 



Since ISSO, more than 60,000,000 acres of these lands have been occupied and largely 

 Orought into use, and the only unoccupied remainder of any moment is found in the 

 lands of the Indian Territory, and in that portion of the widely scattered irrigable lauds 

 yet unsettled, the available total of which cannot exceed 40,000,000 acres, and is probably 

 much less; and these lands are so conditioned that development must be slow. To these 

 40.000 000 acres may be added an indefinite quantity of railway, school, college and State 

 lauds, much of which is wholly unfit for cultivation. Estimatingwith extreme liberality, 

 ihe arable portion of these lands may be put at 30,000,000 acres; then, adding 30,000 000 

 icres more as the undeveloped arable lands novc constituting parts of farms, or yet uu- 

 jccupied lands owned by individuals, we have a possible total of 100,000,000 acres yet to 

 oe brought into use, equivalent to 650,000 farms of 160 acres each. 



Of the farm areas included in the census of 1880, thirty-five per cent, was in wood- 

 and, thirty-one per cent was employed in growing staple crops, and the remainder was 

 in minor crops, or reekcnied as farm yards, pasturage and unused waste laud. It is prob- 

 iblo that the proportion employed in growing staple crops has risen to one-third; and we 

 may assume that thirty-five per cent, will be the maximum jjroportiou of the new farm 

 areas added from the possible 100,000,000 acres that w-ill be devoted to the production of 

 staple crops, thus increasing the productive power some 16.6 per cent. Such increase is 

 likely to be less, rather than more than one-sixth, for no inconsiderable part of these 

 lauds is even now included in farms, and will come under the plow very slowly, if at all 

 Being uow largely in u.se for grazing farm animals; and the requirements for that purpose 

 ire constantly increasing. It is also well to remember that 100.000,000 acres, the available 

 trable area still remaining, is the sum of estimates liberal in the extreme, and that in New 

 Mexico and Arizona alleged Spanish and Mexican grants are likel.y for a long time to 

 retard development. According to the ascertained per capita requirements the existing 

 cultivated area is suflfieient for nearly 67,000,000 people, and with an addition of one-sixth 

 we have a potential supply of cultivated acres sutfleient for a population of 77,000,000. 

 which number will probably be reached in 1900 with an annual increase of but 2.2 per 

 cent.; but not till many .years after 1900 will all these lands be brought into production. 

 Could 35 per cent, of 100,000,000 acres be at once reduced to cultivation, the added acreage 

 in staple crops would barely furnish supplies for such additions as will be made to tlie 

 population within seven years. 



It has long been a favorite boast that American agriculture could feed the world; 

 but a critical examination of its further possible development brings us face to face with 

 a state of affairs suspected only by the few, and shows plainly that long before the close 

 of this century the increase in population and the inevitable exhaustion of the arable 

 soils will necessitate one of two things, namel.y, the adoption, on the part of the great 

 mass of the people, of a less liberal standard of living or tlio importation of food. Prob- 

 ably the ability to support a greater population will come from a report, in some measure, 

 to the first of these alternatives. 



The average American, ambitious and somewliat extravagant in his mode of living, 

 (vill be reluctant to reduce the standard, and only the enhanced cost of indispensibles 

 «'ill impel him thereto. 



B.v the adoption of a more economical way of living, and by the increased produc- 

 tion which may follow improved culture, the per capita requirements can probably be 

 reduced from 3.16 acres to 3 acres, when the land now iu cultivation and that which can be 

 brought into cultivation will sustain a population of 82,000,000— a number that will prob- 

 ably be reached soon after the close of the century— while two, three or four decades will 

 doubtless be required to bring the remnants of the arable areas into production. 



This seems the more probable iu view of the fact that the average rate of increase in 

 cultivated acres during the last five years has been but 1.6 per cent, per annum, as agaiui-t 

 8.4 per cent, ten years earlier, and that it must grow less and less continuously, by reason 

 of the constant shrinkage iu the quantity of arable lauds sub.jcct to draft; hence it would 

 be a most liberal estimate to place such increase, during the remainder of the century, at 

 an average of three-fourths of one per cent, per annum, which would, in 1900, make the 

 cultivated area devoted to staple crops some 226,000,000 acres, or sufficient, at 3.16 acret 



