48 THE FARMER OF TO-MORROW 



to embark in the business of growing food. 

 Hordes have crowded the Land Office, men 

 and women who would be given the oppor- 

 tunity to plow the third acre. 



But the third acre was hard to find. In 

 1900 the floor space devoted to agriculture 

 was 838,000,000 acres, an increase of 34.6 per 

 cent, over 1890. But in the next ten years, 

 when the greatest pressure in our history was 

 being brought to bear on our farms to supply 

 food, the best we could do w r as to add 4.8 per 

 cent, acreage to the floor space of a manufac- 

 turing plant whose efficiency was still being 

 measured by the sunshine-and-rain rate of 

 production. And, at that, it was accomplished 

 only by sorting over the remnants, from which 

 we were able to glean only 40,000,000 acres, 

 bringing the grand total up to 878,000,000 

 acres. Toward the end of the last decade land 

 suitable for farms had become so scarce that 

 home-seekers stood in line and drew lots. Of 

 every hundred who filed claims one would 

 draw a prize from the lottery, and in the ma- 

 jority of instances the so-called prize was of 

 such a forbidding character that old Jeremiah 

 of a generation ago would have passed it by 

 in fine scorn. Right here is where intensive 



