100 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



the total wages and turns out 2.66 per cent of the net 

 products. 



If such a movement of population and industry (or, to 

 speak more accurately, double movement) as we have been 

 observing had taken place l)y itself, the relations of agri- 

 culture and manufactures would probably have readjusted 

 themselves without any serious shock to the former. But 

 contemporaneously with it there has been going on a third 

 movement, quite as marked as either of the others, and far 

 more influential in its effects upon social, political and in- 

 dustrial conditions. I mean the rapid development of a 

 vast area, once vaguely known as " the west," but now the 

 centre of population and the seat of political power for the 

 whole country. For a long period that region was almost 

 entirely agricultural, and a large percentage of the people 

 are still engaged in that industry. The fertility of its soil 

 and the wealth of its natural resources, exploited by a 

 vio-orous race drawn from the best stock of the older 

 States and of Europe, has poured out a supply of food 

 products with which the New England States cannot com- 

 pete, especially since the sharp rivalry of railways has 

 brought down the cost of freight to the almost incredible 

 rate of one cent per ton per mile. Add to this the fact that 

 so large a number of the most ambitious and energetic of 

 the youth of these States have joined the westward-moving 

 throng, and that such vast amounts of eastern capital have 

 been invested there, and one might also be tempted to say 

 that New England had been setting in motion the forces 

 which would ultimately work her own destruction. 



But such a view is narrow, short-sighted and false. It is 

 the wail of the pessimist, not the well-considered judgment 

 of a careful observer. The acreage of farms in the United 

 States has somewhat more than doubled from 1850 to 1890 

 (increasing from 293,560,614 acres to 623,218,619, or 

 112.29 per cent) ; but during the same period the value 

 of farm implements and machinery in use has more than 

 trebled (increasing from $151,587,638 in value in 1850 

 to $494,247,467 in 1890,— a gain of 226.04 per cent), 

 and if we take into account the decrease in the cost of such 

 machinery during that forty years, it is probable that there 



