SKETCH OF MODERN AGRICULTURE 



93 



profits of farming rather than on the products of the farm 

 itself, and it was now ready to respond to the new opportunities 

 which had been created by the railroads, the inventions of farm 

 machinery, the opening of the prairie states, and the develop- 

 ment of the county fairs. There followed, therefore, such an 

 expansion of agricultural enterprise as the world had never seen 

 before, so far as we have any record, and such as it may never 

 see again. The chief factors in stimulating this remarkable ex- 

 pansion were the Homestead Laws of 1862 and 1864, the dis- 

 banding of the armies, the invention of the twine binder, the 

 roller process of manufacturing flour, the building of the trans- 

 continental railroads, the permeation of every nook and corner of 

 the Mississippi Valley by the so-called " granger roads," and the 

 development of the immense cattle ranches of the Far West. 

 While this tremendous expansion was going on in the North 

 and West the cotton industry was undergoing a complete trans- 

 formation in the South and getting ready for the expansion 

 which was to come later. This transformation of the cotton 

 industry was made necessary by the abolition of slavery. 



Progress in the North unchecked by the Civil War. The 

 improved machinery that had already come into use for the 

 harvesting and threshing of small grain and for the planting 

 and cultivation of corn enabled the North to increase its pro- 

 duction of these crops during the Civil War in spite of the 

 drain on its labor force. It is estimated that in 1864 there 

 were 250,000 reapers in use in the United States, and a still 

 greater increase was to come later. Between 1859 an d 1863 

 the wheat crop of Indiana increased from about 15,000,000 

 bushels to 20,000,000 bushels, though one in every ten of her 

 male population was in the army in 1863. By the use of these 

 improved machines a smaller labor force was necessary to keep 

 up the same rate of agricultural production. Again, the labor 

 force of the North was in part replenished by immigration from 



