COMING TO HIS OWN? 9 



continent of rich soil for civilization. He carried to 

 the frontier an eager desire for education, the demo- 

 cratic impulse, and the fear of the Lord. He has 

 helped fight his country's battles. He has been the bed- 

 rock of representative government. His independent 

 spirit, his abundant energy, his high intelligence have 

 made him without a peer among the tillers of the soil. 

 His income is supposed to be two and one-half times 

 that of the English farmer, three times that of the Ger- 

 man farmer, and six times that of the Italian farmer. 



A rather careful survey of the agricultural produc- 

 tion of different nations indicates that the production 

 of the American farmer, whether considered by him- 

 self or with all those dependent upon him, is several 

 times that of the German, British, French, or Italian 

 farmer. The exact relation may be shown in the fol- 

 lowing table, in which an arbitrary index figure is used 

 to show relative values. If we call the index of 

 productivity for each American engaged in agriculture 

 292; the index for the British farmer is 126; for each 

 German farmer, 119; for the French farmer, 90; and 

 for the Italian farmer, 45. That is to say, the volume 

 of productivity of each American engaged in agricul- 

 ture is about two and one-half times that of the English 

 agriculturist, nearly three times that of the German 

 farmer, and six times that of the Italian. 



Fixing at 1,000 the productivity of each American 

 dependent on agriculture, which includes all persons 

 gainfully employed in agriculture as well as those de- 

 pendent on them, the German index will be 685, or 

 68 per cent, as much; for the Briton, 425, or 42 per 

 cent.; for the Frenchman, 406, or 40 per cent.; and for 

 the Italian 230, or 23 per cent. Of course this table 



