LAND AND OTHER AGENTS OF PRODUCTION 193 



perceive here the working of a uniform law, independent of location, 

 of soil, or of climate. It is the law of a diminishing return due to soil 

 destruction. Apply this to the country at large, and it reduces agri- 

 culture to the condition of a bank whose depositors are steadily draw- 

 ing out more money than they put in. 



What is true in this instance is true of our agriculture as a whole. 

 In no other important country in the world, with the exception of 

 Russia, is the industry that must be the foundation of every state at 

 so low an ebb as in our own. According to the last census the average 

 annual product per acre of the farms of the whole United States was 

 worth $11 .38. It is little more than a respectable rental in commu- 

 nities where the soil is properly cared for and made to give a reason- 

 able return for cultivation. There were but two states in the Union 

 whose total value of farm products was over $30 per acre of improved 

 land. The great state of Illinois gave but $12.48, and Minnesota 

 showed only $8.74. No discrimination attaches to these figures, 

 where all are so much at fault. Nature has given to us the most 

 valuable possession ever committed to man. It can never be dupli- 

 cated, because there is none like it upon the face of the earth. And 

 we are racking and impoverishing it exactly as we are f elling the forests 

 and rifling the mines. Our soil, once the envy of every other country, 

 the attraction which draws millions of immigrants across the seas, 

 gave an average yield for the whole United States during the ten years 

 beginning with 1896 of 13 . 5 bushels of wheat per acre. Austria and 

 Hungary each produced over 17 bushels of wheat per acre, France 

 19 . 8, Germany 27.6, and the United Kingdom 32.2 bushels per acre. 

 For the same decade our average yield of oats was less than 30 bushels, 

 while Germany produced 46 and Great Britain 42. For barley the 

 figures are 25 against 33 and 34 . 6; for rye 15.4 against 24 for Germany 

 and 26 for Ireland. In the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Nether- 

 lands, and Denmark a yield of more than 30 bushels of wheat per 

 acre has been the average for the past five years. 



When the most fertile land in the world produces so much less 

 than that of poorer quality elsewhere, and this low yield shows a 

 tendency toward steady decline, the situation becomes clear. We are 

 robbing the soil in an effort to get the largest cash returns from each 

 acre of ground in the shortest possible time and with the least possible 

 labor. 



In all parts of the United States, with only isolated exceptions, the 

 system of tillage has been to select the crop which would bring in most 



