74 THE FARMER OF TO-MORROW 



trates the domain of the American farmer 

 acquired by the process of homesteading. It 

 is especially striking in view of the oft- 

 repeated statement that "free land is a thing 

 of the past." It illustrates how an inexorable 

 Nature has interposed an impregnable ob- 

 stacle against the further advance of the plow 

 on the rainless bench lands of the western 

 plains. 



Right here is the turning point between the 

 old system of subsidized farming and the per- 

 manent order of agriculture as an industry 

 that must stand on its own feet. Here the 

 Farmer of Yesterday becomes an anomaly and 

 the Farmer of To-morrow enters to take up the 

 task of producing food. Here is where our 

 Jeremiahs enter, go back to the land, facing 

 new problems, new conditions. And when we 

 have examined the field that lies before the 

 pioneers of the new industry of farming who 

 will say that their opportunities are not 

 immeasurably brighter than those of the 

 Farmers of Yesterday who went west 

 with their yokes of oxen and their iron 

 kettles? 



The industry develops from this point along 



