I IX) PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



competition and may reasonably expect to see the fruits of his 

 own superior knowledge and intelligence. This^means more for 

 the future of American agriculture than anything else which has 

 happened. These circumstances give tremendous significance 

 to the experiment stations, by means of which scientific knowl- 

 edge is to be made accessible to those who have the intelligence 

 to use it. Fifty years earlier the same development of experi- 

 ment stations would scarcely have been possible because of the 

 lack of opportunity for the use of scientific knowledge in com- 

 petition with pioneering. These two facts taken together that 

 is, the development of the experiment stations and the increas- 

 ing opportunities for the use of scientific knowledge will bring 

 about a reorganization of agriculture and will create what some 

 have chosen to call the New Agriculture. 



Transition from extensive to intensive farming. Where land 

 is cheap and labor dear, wasteful and extensive farming is nat- 

 ural and it is useless to preach against it. While extensive 

 agriculture is wasteful of land, it is not always wasteful of labor ; 

 in fact, it is usually economical rather than wasteful. We 

 always tend to waste that which is cheap and to economize 

 that which is dear. The condition of this country in all the pre- 

 ceding periods which we have studied dictated the wasteful use 

 of land and the economic use of labor. This economical appli- 

 cation of labor has been shown by the unprecedented develop- 

 ment of agricultural machinery. But as land becomes dearer 

 relatively to labor, as it inevitably will, the tendency will be 

 equally inevitable toward more intensive agriculture, that is, 

 toward a system which produces more per acre. This will follow, 

 through the normal working of economic laws, as surely as water 

 will flow downhill. 



Large portions of the public domain are still unoccupied 

 and the greater part of it will probably always remain so, but 

 a considerable area in the aggregate may still be reclaimed 



