THE FARMER OF TO-MORROW 



lying west of the ninety-ninth meridian, it is 

 the opinion of Dr. Cyril G. Hopkins, of Il- 

 linois, and other close students of agricultural 

 economics that the United States of the future 

 will have to look to the "rain-belt" as its 

 main food reservoir. Irrigation in the arid 

 West to-day accounts for less than one-half 

 of one per cent, of the continental area, and 

 dry-farming, as we have said, has arrived at 

 a point of expansion where the problem is 

 more one of holding its own than of further 

 expansion. 



The tendency toward concentration of pro- 

 duction in the Middle West was already be- 

 coming strongly marked at the close of the 

 first decade of the new century. 



In the census year of 1910 it was ascer- 

 tained that fifty-six per cent, of all crops 

 grown was produced in the Middle West. The 

 East, including New England and the Middle 

 Atlantic States, furnished but a fraction over 

 seven per cent. The Mountain and Pacific 

 States, many times more vast in area, pro- 

 duced 6.2 per cent., and the South, 30.6 per 

 cent. Remember in this connection that one- 

 fifth of all the land cultivated south of the 

 Mason and Dixon line is cotton, and that in 



