204 THE THIRD POWER 



the rest of the world might do. He produced for his own 

 use and had little need for intercourse with the remainder of 

 the world. Not so the American farmer of to-day, whose 

 butter is made at the creamery and cheese at the factory and 

 who never saw a suit of home-made clothes. He sells his 

 grain and his fruit in the market of the world ; he competes 

 there, not only with the agricultural producers of all sections 

 of his own country, but also with semi-tropical agricultural 

 workers of the Argentine Republic and India and the peasants 

 of South Russia. Therefore, droughts of South America, 

 rains of India and floods of Russia affect his condition as 

 much as similar occurrences in his own field. 



Every year as methods of production are improved, stronger 

 grows the competition among agricultural producers all over 

 the globe. Bulky products, like hay, straw and so-called fod- 

 der in general are transformed into meat before being mar- 

 keted, and in this form their market becomes as extensive as 

 this of machinery or diamonds. Refrigerating system on 

 railroad and steamship lines with cold storage warehouses 

 have extended the market for once highly perishable products 

 of dairy and poultry farming nearly to the same limits. Once 

 new methods of transportation introduced, the cereals became 

 eternally flowing through the channels of commerce and a 

 few cents difference is sufficient to send them from one hemis- 

 phere to another. 



This specialization of farming did not make, however, the 

 task of the modern farmer any easier as it did in all other 

 industries. To succeed in raising of many crops on modern, 

 specialized farm, he must possess the knowledge of the chem- 

 ical composition of the soil and of the system of fertilizing. 

 The modern processes of sowing, tending and harvesting are 

 comparatively very complex and to do them properly a modern 

 farmer must have an elaborate and expensive equipment of 

 complicated machines. The proper care of animals without 

 a knowledge of scientific system of feeding is simply impos- 

 sible. Truck farming and market gardening demand a knowl- 

 edge of scientific application of heat, sun-light and plant food 

 to growing plants. If the modern farmer has no knowledge 

 of composition of the soil and of fertilizing, he is in many 



