322 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



lines, each different from the movement of the nineteenth century. 

 Briefly, the first of these will be to make farms out of land not 

 now in farms by draining wet places, irrigating dry places, pull- 

 ing stumps, moving stones, and the like. The second will be 

 somewhat similar to the first. It will be to improve the wood- 

 land and other unimproved land now in farms by the processes 

 noted above. The third will be to put into active and more 

 constant use the land already reported as improved. This means 

 the elimination of summer fallow and better utilization of other 

 land reported as improved but not accounted for in the report of 

 specific crops. The fourth, unlike the third, will be the move- 

 ment towards more intensive cultivation, better farm methods, 

 and better organization of the farm work. 



Now the four movements which I have indicated above as pos- 

 sible and, indeed, as necessary, if the food supply of the United 

 States is to be maintained at its present level during the twenti- 

 eth century, have already begun. But they are so much slower 

 than the increase of population that agriculture has fallen far 

 behind and is at the present time falling further and further 

 behind. There is no question in my mind that this failure to 

 keep pace with the general industrial movement of the country 

 is one of the most important causes of the high cost of living 

 so much talked about at the present time. Unless some of the 

 movements indicated above progress with much greater rapidity 

 than now, the high cost of living will go even higher. 



When the old movement stopped, when the frontier had dis- 

 appeared, when the people commenced to say to themselves that 

 there was practically no more free land, they turned their atten- 

 tion more and more towards other activities. They turned to 

 manufacturing, to transportation, to the trades, and to the pro- 

 fessions. This fact is well known to all who have observed closely, 

 and can also be demonstrated statistically. The actual extent of 

 the movement should be briefly set down in order that the entire 

 situation may be made clear. During the first ten years of the 

 present century the number of farms in the United States in- 

 creased 10.9 per cent. This was clearly due to the splitting up 

 of many large farms ; since, as already noted, the amount of land 



