THE GLEANERS 



69 



This statement does not assume to be spe- 

 cific. The Bureau of Statistics of the De- 

 partment of Agriculture has since narrowed 

 the measure of cultivated land down to actual 

 acres and percentage of the whole. In de- 

 termining the value of the product of an acre, 

 these statisticians chose wheat, corn, oats, 

 barley, rye, buckwheat, potatoes, tobacco, hay 

 and cotton as constituting ninety-five per 

 cent, of the cultivated area of the United 

 States. During the closing years of the first 

 decade of the present century the acres de- 

 voted to these crops had begun to mark time 

 after nearly a century of uninterrupted ad- 

 vance. The figures for 1910 are representa- 

 tive and are given herewith: 



Corn 114,002,000 



Wheat 49,205,000 



Hay. . . .. 45,691,000 



Oats 35,288,000 



Cotton 32,403,000 



Barley 7,257,000 



Potatoes 3,591,000 



Rye 2,028,000 



Tobacco 1,234,000 



Buckwheat 826,000 



Total 291,523,000 



Adding the remaining five per cent., we 

 have roughly 307 million acres actually under 

 cultivation. It is this three hundred and 

 seven million acres, together with its buildings, 

 machinery and live stock that constitutes the 

 bulk of the fifty billion dollars of capital in- 

 vested in farming. 



