SKETCH OF MODERN AGRICULTURE 1 1 3 



The migration of the wheat belt. A similar movement is 

 showing itself with respect to wheat. Wheat, like beef, has been, 

 in a sense, a frontier crop. This is for no other reason than 

 that it is a suitable crop to grow at long distances from market 

 where land is abundant. That is to say, wheat, like beef, stands 

 transportation well, and, more important still, it is most eco- 

 nomically produced where there is abundance of cheap land in 

 proportion to the supply of labor. When labor has become rela- 

 tively more abundant and land relatively more scarce, there has 

 been a tendency throughout our history for wheat and beef grow- 

 ing to give way to other products requiring less land and more 

 labor for their economical production. For this reason wheat, 

 like beef, has followed our frontier, and we need not be sur- 

 prised or alarmed when the center of wheat production passes 

 to the new frontiers beyond our national boundaries. This will 

 not be a decline in agriculture but an advance. 



However, it is not likely that the total amount of either 

 wheat or beef will actually or seriously decline in this country, 

 though it is unlikely that it will keep pace with our growth of 

 population. Wheat will be found to fit into systems of crop 

 rotation with other heavier-yielding crops. In parts of England, 

 for example, the author has been told by farmers that they 

 could not afford to grow wheat except for the above reason, and 

 for the further reason that they needed straw as bedding for 

 their cattle. If this satisfactorily explains why wheat continued to 

 be grown in an old and densely populated country like England, 

 we may safely predict that it will continue to be grown, to a 

 certain extent, for a great many years in this country. Sim- 

 ilarly, beef will continue to be raised, partly as a necessary 

 adjunct to the dairy industry, partly to utilize land and pasture 

 which is not well suited to tillage, partly by reason of the ex- 

 tension of such productive forage crops as alfalfa, and partly in 

 a system of rotation where it is desirable to allow arable land a 



