DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 319 



and forests. Much of this land, however, can be made available 

 for agriculture and much will be brought into use. During the 

 last century it was possible for the movement to be rapid because 

 special knowledge and advanced scientific principles were un- 

 necessary. Natural fertility of the soil, plenty of land available, 

 and advantageous climatic conditions made rapid advance possible. 

 The movement of the twentieth century must be very different 

 from that of the nineteenth. 



To say that the amount of land in farms increased very slowly 

 during the last ten years, and that the amount of land easily 

 available has been reduced to a very low ebb does not mean that 

 further agricultural development is limited to the bringing of new 

 land into farms. Much of the land which is at the present time 

 included in the farms of the United States has never been im- 

 proved. The census reports for 1900 showed that only 49.4 per 

 cent, or slightly less than one-half, of all of the land in farms was 

 improved. In other words, only 21.8 per cent of the total land 

 area of the United States was reported as improved at that time. 

 It would seem strange if only one-fifth of the total land area of the 

 United States could be actually used for agricultural purposes. It 

 may be noted, in passing, that much of the unimproved land is 

 also used for agricultural purposes, inasmuch as it is used more 

 or less for grazing. Yet the total income from the use of this 

 unimproved land is very small. It would seem that the farmers 

 of the United States, inasmuch as they were free to choose the 

 best land available at the time they became farmers and inasmuch 

 as they have now looked over the entire country, would choose 

 land which could be most readily improved, and therefore it is 

 very likely that the lands now in farms in the United States are 

 in the sections most adapted to agriculture. It is, therefore, 

 reasonable to conclude that much of the development of the 

 twentieth century must turn to improving land already in farms 

 but which in 1900 was woodland or other unimproved land. I 

 have already noted that during the first ten years of the new 

 century the increase in acreage of all land in farms was only 

 4.8 per cent. During this same period, however, the increase 

 in improved land in farms was 15.4 per cent. Assuming that 



