l8 GEOGRAPHICAL CONCENTRATION. 



be a decided tendency toward decentralization, I have en- 

 deavored not to underestimate the forces that may run 

 counter to such a result. I appreciate the importance to the 

 farmer of his cultivating at leas one product that is readily 

 convertible into money, but I fail to see that, taking one 

 year with another, a well- devised system of mixed farming 

 will not yield quite as speedy a return upon capital invested 

 and labor expended as the proportionately more extensive 

 cultivation of one or two products. I make allowance for 

 such influences as may be exerted in the interest of the es- 

 tablished channels of trade, but when the farmers of thirty- 

 five states cut down their production of wheat to the extent 

 of 100,000,000 bushels per annum, they gave no thought 

 either to empty elevators or idle freight cars. I recognize 

 the fact that while everything must have a beginning, the 

 sporadic cultivation of a product for which there is no local 

 demand is rarely profitable, but it is no unwarrantable excur- 

 sion into the realm of speculation to sav that with the growth 

 of population and the extension of manufactures there will 

 spring up new markets for every product that can be grown 

 on United States soil. I realize, moreover, that there are 

 many important products in the cultivation of which a farmer 

 would hesitate to engage without some practical knowledge 

 of their growth and preparation for market. For every 

 farmer, for example, who has had experience in the growing 

 of tobacco there are twenty-five who understand the culti- 

 vation of the cereals and the management of cattle, while 

 there are many products with regard to which the dispro- 

 portion is still greater. 



The American farmer, however, is as migratory as he is 

 progressive. There is scarcely an important county in the 

 west that has not drawn upon the agricultural population of 

 every state outside the cotton belt, and it certainly took the 



