SKETCH OF MODERN AGRICULTURE 95 



One result of this enormous increase in our agricultural pro- 

 ductivity was the increase in the exportation of breadstuff s. This 

 did not begin on a large scale until after 1860, but after that 

 date it increased by leaps and bounds until within twenty years, 

 that is, by 1880, this country had become the world's greatest 

 exporter of wheat. Only a small fraction of the corn crop has 

 ever been exported in the form of corn, a greater part being 

 fed to live stock ; our exports of corn, therefore, have been 

 mostly in the form of animals and animal products. 



As already suggested, one of the agencies which brought 

 about this expansion of agricultural enterprise was the Home- 

 stead Laws ; the policy of giving land to settlers free of cost 

 tended to encourage the rapid settlement of the public domain. 

 Another impetus was given by the disbanding of the armies of 

 the Civil War. The throwing of such an immense labor force 

 upon the market would, under ordinary conditions, have resulted 

 in a glut of the labor market and would, in all probability, have 

 produced civil disturbances. But Congress modified the Home- 

 stead Laws so as to make it very easy for an ex-soldier of the 

 Union army to acquire government land. It was enacted that 

 any honorably discharged Union soldier could deduct the time 

 he served in the army from the time which the ordinary set- 

 tler was required to live upon and cultivate his land before he 

 could acquire a title to it. Thus the disbanding of the armies 

 cooperated with the rising tide of immigration and the free-land 

 system to bring about this remarkably rapid expansion. 



Another factor not to be passed over lightly was the large 

 number of horses and mules set free for productive work by the 

 disbanding of the armies. Many of these were sold to farmers, 

 and added to the supply of power necessary to run the farm 

 machines. This event is regarded by some as fixing the date, 

 if ic can be fixed, of the displacement of the ox by the horse 

 in agriculture. Before this period both horses and oxen were 



