OPPORTUNITIES IN AGRICULTURE 



crossed the Mississippi and nowhere 

 touched the Gulf of Mexico." In 1850 the 

 country west of the Mississippi River was 

 agriculturally largely an undiscovered 

 region. Since 1870 we have much more 

 than doubled our population and our agri- 

 culture. Since that time we have subdued 

 more of the open country to the uses of man 

 than we had been able to do in 250 years of 

 our previous history. 



During the past 300 years we have prided 

 ourselves upon being an agricultural peo- 

 ple. We have been an agricultural people, 

 but our problems have not been chiefly 

 those of the agriculturist, but those of the 

 engineer. 



Our problem, in the past, has not been to 

 make two blades of grass to grow where but 

 one grew before. Our problem has been to 

 harvest and transport two bushels of wheat 

 or two bales of cotton with the labor pre- 

 viously required to harvest one. Our crops 

 have been so abundant that the agricultural 

 problems connected with the growing of 

 them has been secondary to the engineering 



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