SKETCH OF MODERN AGRICULTURE 109 



agriculture was drawing to a close by reason of the practical ex- 

 haustion of the- supply of free public lands, that is, the supply 

 of public lands which could be immediately reduced to cultiva- 

 tion by the settler without much previous expenditure of capital 

 and labor. Since that time the greater part of the public lands 

 that have been actually settled have required irrigation. Irrigated 

 land requires a different type of settlement from that which 

 prevailed from the earliest settlement of the American continent 

 down to this date. This practical exhaustion of the free public 

 lands soon began to have its effect upon the markets for agri- 

 cultural products not only in this country but in our foreign 

 markets as well. The lands farther east had no longer to com- 

 pete with the newly settled lands of the frontier,' and the farmers 

 of the east no longer had to sell their products at a price dic- 

 tated by the frontier farmer, who was induced to grow crops not 

 so much by the prices he received as by the hope of a rise in 

 the value of his land. There soon began, therefore, a general 

 rise in the value of farm lands in the older settled portions 

 of the country, and our people were beginning to see that 

 the increased demand of our growing population for agricultural 

 products could not be met any longer by merely extending the 

 area of our pioneer farms westward. It must be met, if met at 

 all, by increasing the product per acre of the farms already under 

 cultivation, but this will only come about as the result of uni- 

 formly higher prices for agricultural products. Hereafter there 

 will be a higher premium upon intensive and scientific farming 

 than there has ever been before. So long as there was free 

 public land to be had for the asking, the opportunities for the 

 scientific farmer were limited by the possibilities open to the 

 pioneer farmer, who needed nothing but a team and a few im- 

 plements and a very meager equipment in the way of knowl- 

 edge to enable him to grow crops successfully. From this time 

 forward the scientific farmer will be free from that kind of 



