202 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



the eastern part of our own country, with less rugged topography than 

 the West and more favorable climatic conditions, the extension of 

 farm land will go on at the expense of the land now occupied by the 

 forest, but capable of producing crops, and the forest land proper will 

 be confined to thin soil and the steep slopes of the mountains. In that 

 part of the West which has a very rugged topography and very 

 unfavorable climatic conditions, additional farm land will be won 

 chiefly from the semiarid lands and not from the forests, which have 

 been relegated by nature itself to soils and situations unsuitable for 

 agriculture. There is, of course, here and there in the Pacific Coast 

 mountains, and even in the Rocky Mountains, land which can be 

 used for agricultural crops, but on the whole the western mountains 

 will always remain chiefly a forest region and the relative area of 

 forest land and farm land there will always be determined chiefly by 

 nature. 



Grazing land. Land chiefly valuable for grazing will form about 

 one-fifth of the extent of the United States proper. This land 

 originally lay west of the one hundredth meridian, in the plains and 

 mountain valleys, but with the advance of dry farming its eastern 

 boundary has been shifted farther west to about the one hundred and 

 third meridian. This land receives but a scanty rainfall and can pro- 

 duce neither forest nor field crop, but supports a vegetation of hardy 

 grasses. It was formerly the natural -range of millions of buffalo and 

 is now the grazing ground of herds of cattle and sheep. This land 

 will remain largely a natural range, since the area which can be irri- 

 gated, and thus reclaimed for agricultural purposes, or which can even 

 be used for dry farming, is comparatively small. 



According to government estimates, the available water will be 

 sufficient to irrigate 71,000,000 acres, or i acre in 7^ of the entire 

 region. The Reclamation Service, however, does not expect to 

 reclaim more than 5 per cent of all the arid land. This area, together 

 with that used for dry farming, may hardly be sufficient even to 

 counterbalance the reduction of the productive area in the United 

 States through the growth of cities, the building of railroads, and the 

 general development of commerce and non-agricultural industry. 

 With the exception of this 5 per cent and whatever area can be 

 brought under dry farming, the rest of the land will be forever devoted 

 to grazing purposes. While only a small portion of this land can be 

 brought under the plow, the possibilities for increasing its productive- 



