12 The Great World's Farm 



to say something, were very much in the habit of writing 

 '* desert" across those regions of the earth which were to 

 them ''unknown." 



These imaginary deserts, which once occupied so large 

 a space in our maps, are, however, fast shrinking and 

 dwindhng away before the face of the explorer, until there 

 are few if any left. The last so-called desert in America 

 was that to the west of the United States, and that 

 vanished some five and twenty years ago, when Mr. Hep- 

 worth Dixon said of it: *'It has retreated further and 

 further, and has taken its last stand behind the Missouri, 

 where I faced it, and now I can assure you that I have 

 been right through the Great Prairie, and desert there 

 is none. The prairie is the pasture-land of the world — 

 already prepared; that is, to afford an ample livelihood to 

 man's flocks and herds as soon as he should choose to 

 make use of it; and certainly, therefore, no desert, though 

 ''only an Indian hunting-ground!" 



But still, it may be said, there is a wide difference 

 between a desert and a farm. If the prairie is not bare, 

 at least it is uncultivated; and the word "farm" suggests 

 the idea of plows and harrows, orderly crops, sheep, and 

 cattle. Very true; but because nature farms in ways of 

 her own, on a large scale and without fuss, while man 

 farms in his way on a small one, and lets all the world 

 know what he is doing, is that any reason for denying to 

 nature the name of "farmer".? 



How much of the earth has man brought under culti- 

 vation? In Europe, where he has done most, the propor- 

 tion varies from little more than a twentieth (in Sweden), 

 to a little more than one-half (in Belgium). Supposing 

 that he farms, or "improves," one-tenth of the land all 



