80 AMERICAN FARMS. 



American agriculturists if they would have their pro- 

 ductions find customers in foreign marts. No possible 

 home policy can shut off this competition. 



Neither is the outlook at home any more cheering. 

 The small or least favored grain producers, who have 

 been unable to change their labors to other directions, 

 are being borne down by the overwhelming odds pitted 

 against them. The majority of the great ''bonanza 

 farms," from which the severe competition comes, have, 

 in many cases, cost the owners comparatively but a trifle, 

 while little outlay is required for fertilizers. Further- 

 more, the most effective machinery to be procured is 

 being employed to turn these unequalled natural re- 

 sources into food products. 



Of this, says a noted American economist ' : "A 

 huge abundance therefore ensues from the least amount 

 of human labor. On some of the fattest land of the 

 West, the measure of the product of one man, working 

 the best machinery with a pair of horses, has reached 

 one hundred tons of corn in a single season. The aim of 

 some of the great ' bonanza farms ' of Dakota has been 

 to apply machinery so effectually that the cultivation of 

 one full section, or six hundred and forty acres, shall 

 represent one year's work of only one man. This has 

 not yet been reached, but so far as the production of 

 the grain of wheat is concerned, one man's work will 

 now give one thousand persons enough for a barrel of 

 flour a year, which is the average ration." 



On the great farms of the West ploughing is per- 

 formed by immense double-gang ploughs — too expensive 

 and ponderous for use on the small farms. Each 

 plough is drawn by four horses, the ploughman riding 

 1 Mr. Edward Atkinson. 



