PREFACE 



THE author has sought to bring together in 

 one volume a popular consideration of the two 

 fundamental factors affecting the business of 

 farming: first, the floor space of the American 

 farmer in terms of land, and, second, the re- 

 sources of the land itself, in terms of soil fer- 

 tility. The inter-relation of these two factors 

 must determine eventually the type of farm- 

 ing of any community. 



"Where shall I locate my plant?" is the 

 prime question the man who goes back to the 

 land to-day must ask himself. Free land is 

 gone; the rich homesteads of a decade or two 

 ago, to be had for the asking, have forever 

 passed into history. Yet there are opportuni- 

 ties for the business farmers of to-day un- 

 dreamed of by their ancestors of a generation 

 or two ago to whom land was nothing but a 

 means of labor. Less than one-half of the nine 

 hundred million acres in the hands of the 

 farmer is improved; nearly two-thirds of this 



