AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



given (1900) as the improved area of farms. 1 

 In Germany, eighty per cent, of the total area is 

 included in farms (1895) J but only three- fourths 

 of the total farm area is counted as improved 

 land. Hence about sixty per cent, only of the 

 total area of Germany is improved farm land. 2 

 These figures indicate that the land of the United 

 States has not been nearly so completely brought 

 under cultivation as has that of the older coun- 

 tries. Yet there is sixteen times as much im- 

 proved farm land in the United States as there is 

 in England, and five times as much as in Ger- 

 many. 



The above figures for the United States as a 

 whole do not fairly represent the extent to which 

 the land of this country has been utilized. In the 

 state of Illinois ninety-one per cent, of the total 

 area is included in farms, and eighty-four and 

 one-half per cent, of the area in farms is im- 

 proved, so that nearly seventy-six per cent, of the 

 total area of the state is improved farm land. 

 In Iowa the proportion of improved land is even 



1 By "improved area" is meant the acreage under "crops, 

 bare fallow, or grass," "the rough grazings attached to many 

 farms in hilly districts" not being included. The total "im- 

 proved area" of farm land in England was 24,713,790 acres. 

 (See the Agricultural Returns, published annually by the 

 Board of Agriculture.) 



2 Land used as cultivated fields, gardens, meadows, rich 

 pastures, orchards, and vineyards are counted as improved 

 land, in the German reports. The total improved area in 

 farms in Germany was 80,451,632 acres, in 1895. (SeeStatis- 

 tik des Deutschen Reichs (1895). Neue Folge 112, p. 21*) 



12 



