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A GRAPHIC SUMMARY OF 

 AMERICAN AGRICULTURE 



BASED LARGELY ON THE CENSUS OF 1920 



3 I'' 



By O. E. Baker, Ar/rkntltitral Economist. Bureau of Affrieultural Economics. 



Introduction. 



FOUR COUNTRIES are preeminent in quantity of agricultural 

 production — the United States, Russia, China, and India — and 

 at present the production of the United States is considerably 

 greater than that of any other nation. The aggregate value (United 

 States value) of the agricultural products of the Russian Empire 

 just prior to the war was only about two-thirds that of our Nation, 

 while the production of foods and fibers in China, which can only 

 be guessed at, is probably also about two-thirds and certainly not 

 over three-fourths that of the United States. The agricultural 

 production in India is less than half that of our Nation. Only the 

 British commonwealth of nations as a whole — India, Australia, New 

 Zealand, South Africa, Canada, and the British Isles — approaches 

 the United States in quantity of agricultural production, with an 

 aggregate about nine-tenths that of the United States. 



The United States is not only the leading nation in agricultural 

 production, but also it leads all nations in exports of agricultural 

 products. The teeming populations of China and India require 

 practically all the food produced and most of the fiber for home 

 consumption, but in normal times Russia has ranked with the United 

 States in value of agricultural exports. War, revolution, and crop 

 failure, however, have transformed Russia into a nation unable to 

 feed its own people. Since the war the value of agricultural ex- 

 ports from the United States has exceeded the aggregate value of 

 those from all other nations in the world. Yet the agricultural 

 exports of the United States at present are only one-eighth of its 

 production. 



This vast agricultural production of the United States requires 

 the labor of about one-quarter of our gainfully employed popula- 

 tion, whereas 85 per cent of the population of Russia is classed as 

 agricultural, and probably three-fourths of the people of China and 

 of India derive their support from agricultural pursuits. Six and a 

 half million farmers in the United States, assisted by a somewhat 



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