CHAPTER II 



OUR AGRICULTURAL POSSIBILITIES AND 

 PROBLEMS 



The explanation of these problems is not to be 

 found in the niggardliness of nature or the character 

 of oui" people. There is land enough and water 

 enough and labor enough to produce all the food we 

 need. As a matter of fact, the United States should 

 be the cheapest country in the world in which to 

 live. Ours should be a land of overflowing abun- 

 dance; not for the few but for everybody; not 

 of a few articles but of every kind of food. Wages 

 are high, it is true, but labor is more productive here 

 than elsewhere. We have perfected machinery as 

 have no other people, and it is more universally used. 

 We have resources more fertile than those of all 

 Europe. We have every variety of climate and every 

 kind of food. The soO is so fertile that it needs but 

 Httle enrichment, while our race is recruited from 

 the most versatile in Europe. No people have been 

 so inventive; none have harnessed steam and elec- 

 tricity to increase the power of man, and nowhere, 

 unless it be in Austraha, is there so large a product 

 per man as in the United States. There should be 

 no difficulty about food, fuel, houses to live in, or 



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