THE EXHAUSTION OF THE ARABLE LANDS. 17 



per capita, for a population of 71,500,000 (and at 3 acres per cnpita, for a popiilntion of 

 75,300,000), with the possibility of aildiug from 15 000,000 to 20,000,000 acres more in the 

 earlier decades of the twentieth century. This, however, is an extremely liberal estimate, 

 while a reasonably cautious one would put the rate of increase in cultivated area, during 

 the remainder of the century, at one-third the rale obtaining since 1884. or an average of 

 one-half ot one per cent, per annum. That would in ten years augment the cultivated 

 irea by 10,500,000 acres maUing an aggregate of some 221,500,000 acres, or sufficient, at 

 J. 16 acres per capita, to meet the requirements of 70,000,000 people, and at 3 acres per 

 japita, of 74,000,000, which is probably as large a population as our fields can provide for 

 during this century. 



In view of the progressively rapid reduction in the rate of increase, and the con- 

 stantly diminishing quantity of unoccupied arable laud to draw from, an addition of 

 10,500,000 acres of cultivated land seems to be quite as much as can be expected in this 

 decade. During the remainder tf this century, the annual increase in consumption will 

 necessitate average yearly additions of 16,000,000 acres to farm areas, of which nearly one- 

 third must be land actually producing staple crops. With but 100,000,000 arable acres to 

 draw from, of which a considerable part is already included in farms, there would appear 

 to be little dilticulty in determining the maxinjum time that will elapse before the ex- 

 haustion of the material from which new farms can be carved in numbers sufficient to 

 meet the requirements of the increasing population, and after which consumption must, 

 as in Europe, be met from the products of a given and practically unexpanding area sup- 

 plemented by an importation of food. ^ 



— e-^~iS5£j^fe.25'Tr-t — 



SOME IMPENDING CHANGES. 



When we reflect that the prime factor In the unexampled prosperity of the United 

 States and our comparative freedom from many of the social and economic problems 

 long confronting Europe, has been the existence of an almost unlimited area of fertile land 

 to which the unemployed could freely resort; that, practically, such lands are now fully 

 occupied, and that such occupancy has occasioned a sudden halt in the westward move- 

 ment of population at the line found to be the extreme western limit of profitable agri- 

 culture, it may be well to inquire what changes are likely to result from the exhaustion 

 of the tillable portion of the public domain. 



That settlement and cultivation, more or less complete, have overrun and occupied 

 all the tillable lands, with the exception of small tracts held for higher prices, is shown 

 by the reversal of the current of population which, for three or four years has been 

 moving e:istward from the great plains lying at the base of the Rocky Mountains, after 

 the units constituting this army of returning settlers have each spent years in futile efiorta 

 to extort the means of subsistence from a soil lacliing only moisture to render it fruitful. 



Year following year the crops have failed, and the settler.* upon these arid wastes, 

 after exhausting their limited means, have, in a majority of cases, been forced to abandon 

 their lands and improvements, representing a life's savings Such experiences have prob- 

 ably been necessary in order to demonstrate the exhaustion of the arable lands. 



It is the more or less complete rfiminatiou of this factor in the prosperity of the 

 country which is the presage of rapid and far-reaching changes in the social, economic, 

 industrial &nd political relations of the people. Heretofore, when the invention of a 

 labor-saving device threw numbers of men out of employment, a portion, especially of 

 'vhe more thrifty, resorted to the public domain, from which they proceeded to carve a 

 farm, or bought the farms of others contemDlatioe removal to the public domain, in oi 



