ECONOMIC CAUSES OF DEPLETION 69 



somewhat rapid adoption of the silo. Just before that 

 date the tirst cream separator to be used on this side of 

 the Atlantic had been set up in the Province of Quebec. 

 About the same period also began the widespread adop- 

 tion of the modern barn, with its trolley unloader and 

 its installation of a water system. The introduction of 

 improved tield machinery, the hay-loader, the potato- 

 digger, the manure-spreader; the employment of the 

 traction engine and the gasoline motor, has kept pace 

 with the remodelling of the barn. The outcome of 

 these changes is that one man, with modern equipment, 

 can accomplish the results achieved by many in the days 

 of hand labor. The Census Bureau of the United 

 States, in a report dealing with the census of 1890, pub- 

 lished a comparative table covering the nine principal 

 farm products in 1850, and showing that whereas 

 570,000,000 days' labor— that of 1,900,000 persons for 

 300 days — were required to produce them, the same 

 amount of the same staples in 1890 were accounted for 

 by 400,000 persons or 120,000,000 days' labor, slightly 

 over one-fifth requisite forty years before. The ratio 

 of change during the ensuing twenty years has doubtless 

 been accelerated rather than slackened. We would 

 probably be not far wrong in supposing that the effi- 

 ciency of labor, in the major operations at any rate, is 

 not far from seven times what it was two generations 

 ago. 



But with the increasing use of machinery on the 

 farm has come, with almost eqtial pace, an increasing 

 demand for farm produce due to increase of city popu- 

 lation and to the more lavish consumption accompany- 

 ing increased wealth. The setting free from farm 

 labor of a certain nuuilMtr fcjllows the introduction of 



