DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 327 



thing of the past, no longer available for those who wish to 

 take up agriculture, the prospective farmer was forced to start 

 in a new way. Instead of moving to the frontier and depend- 

 ing upon the labor of Ifimself and family to build up a farm, he 

 was forced either to buy land or to start as a tenant on land 

 already in some other person's farm. The number of people 

 wishing to buy land or to become tenants was thus increased, 

 being equal to the former number in this class and swelled by 

 all those who otherwise would have gone to the frontier. The 

 demand exceeded the supply. It was natural that the owners of 

 land, finding more buyers than formerly, and finding more appli- 

 cants among those who would become tenants than formerly, were 

 able to secure either a larger price for the farms which they sold 

 or a larger cash rental (or equivalent) for the farms which they 

 leased. This problem, however, remains : if the farm did not 

 produce more goods, or if the goods produced did not sell for 

 higher prices, the prospective purchaser would be unable to pay 

 the higher price for the land or the higher amount for rent, and 

 therefore higher land values and higher rents would have been 

 impossible, unless the new owners and tenants were reduced to 

 a lower standard of living than formerly or unless their surplus 

 earnings of former years were reduced. That land values did go 

 up, that the standard of living did not go down, and that farmers 

 in the past were not able to save large amounts of their savings 

 are, I believe, established facts. The extent to which land values 

 increased is also an established fact. It is natural, therefore, that 

 we should at once ask the question. Was the increase in price 

 which the farmer received (whether due to the increase in quan- 

 tity of goods produced or not) sufficient to warrant the increased 

 capitalization of farm lands ? 



The total value of the crops produced by the farmers of conti- 

 nental United States in 1909 was $5,487,161,223, as compared 

 with $2,998,704,412 in 1899. There was, therefore, an increase 

 in the total value of crops amounting to $2,488,456,811, or ex- 

 actly 83 per cent. For our purposes we must assume that the 

 figures here given represent the value to the farmers of all crops 

 which they produced. No doubt these figures are not exactly the 



