INTENSIVE AND EXTENSIVE FARMING 145 



Very rarely is an American farmer limited to any partic- 

 ular area. It is nearly always possible to buy or rent more 

 land. It is not at all necessary that one have money 

 enough to buy all the land that he farms. Fifty-four per 

 cent of the farmers in the United States own all the land 

 that they farm, 9 per cent own part of the land that they 

 are farming and rent part of it, and 35 per cent rent the 

 entire area. 



The usual assumption seems to be that if a man has only 

 '$1000, he must find a farm and kind of farming that can 

 be conducted with this capital as an owner. It is strange 

 how universally writers ignore the opportunities as tenants 

 and part owners. Nearly three million farmers in the 

 United States are using these means of securing a start 

 in farming rather than farm on the small area that their 

 limited capital might buy. If a man has not money 

 enough to buy and equip a fair sized farm, it is much 

 better for him to rent all or a part of his land. (See 

 page 309.) 



Not only is land for an individual farmer fairly easy to 

 secure by rental or ownership, but the land of the country 

 as a whole is far from exhausted. The fact that most of 

 our land is held by a deed does not mean that the supply 

 of land is exhausted. One needs but to travel over the 

 United States to realize how many millions of acres there 

 are in swamps and other reclalmable areas not in farms. 

 On the vast majority of the individual farms there are 

 areas of little used land ; land in woods, or brush, or wet 

 places, that may be reclaimed whenever prices make such 

 reclamation worth while. A trip through the Southern 

 and Eastern States impresses one with our tremendous 

 reserve supply of land that is little used, but that will 

 some day be developed, when we need it. 



