40 THE FARMER OF TO-MORROW 



the price of food was bound to go up. Second, 

 the price of land as capital land as the plant 

 in which is manufactured a limited supply of 

 food must follow suit. That is why the cor- 

 respondent whose father w r ent west with a 

 yoke of oxen and an iron kettle found the 

 editor rather impatient at his mention of five 

 thousand dollars to outfit a modern farmer 

 with land, stock and machinery. 



There is not much margin between famine 

 and plenty. The world's hunger follows close 

 on the heels of harvest. A reader of statis- 

 tical bent can trace the history of the American 

 farmer, explain all his ups and downs, by 

 examining the per capita production of bread 

 and meat since the Civil War. A chart com- 

 prised of these elements would show that the 

 farmer was prosperous during the decade fol- 

 lowing the Civil War, in spite of depreciated 

 currency and reconstruction. There were too 

 many mouths to feed and not enough acres 

 under cultivation to feed them. Then came 

 the Homestead Act, with its tide of settlers 

 rolling west, finally to be turned back by the 

 wall of mountains. By 1879 we find the "floor 

 space" devoted to producing food catching up 

 with the normal demands of an increasing 



