36 THE FARMER OF TO-MORROW 



in the days of our youth, too much land, 

 nothing but land, land as means of labor. The 

 fact that the average farm in the State of Iowa 

 was appraised at over fifteen thousand dollars 

 in value by the census enumerators of 1910 

 is sufficient to open our eyes to the develop- 

 ments of the last decade. 



We are already beginning to appreciate the 

 fact though the time is not yet sufficiently 

 remote to give us the proper perspective 

 that the opening of the present century marks 

 a very definite milestone in the progress of 

 the nation. The period is so definite in fact 

 that its characteristics can be reduced to a 

 simple chart. On the one side, the closing de- 

 cades of the nineteenth century is a slowly 

 descending line, picturing the declining for- 

 tunes of the United States as an agricultural 

 nation, due to over-development of land re- 

 sources. On the other side is a steadily as- 

 cending line, marking the sudden rise of 

 manufactures and commerce, a new align- 

 ment of producers and consumers of food, 

 eventually bringing about a new era of pros- 

 perity in the despised industry of farming. 

 Trace the history of great individual fortunes 

 founded on commerce and manufactures and 



