POWER AND THE FOOD SUPPLY 275 



Upon cultivating the soil, he became master of the plants and 

 shaped them to serve his purposes. With the plow the savage 

 life of the hunter and the nomad life of the herder gave way 

 to that settled agriculture that now yields our food supply 

 and upon which rests our modern civilization. 



Nature in her most extravagant moods has never brought 

 civilization. In Columbus's time the entire continent sup- 

 ported fewer inhabitants than are now grouped in any one of 

 a dozen American cities. With an abundance of wild game and 

 fishes, the Indian suffered periodical famines, the severity of 

 which was often modified only by the scanty supplies of maize 

 raised by the squaws. The application of power to the soil 

 and the civilizing influence of systematic work are the cardinal 

 elements underlying continued national prosperity. 



So long as a whole race must be occupied chiefly in providing 

 itself with food and raiment, it has neither time nor desire for 

 pursuits of a higher nature. To the substitution of brute power 

 for man power the world owes the growth of cities, commerce, 

 arts, and sciences. To steam it owes the gigantic development 

 of industry and trade, but without the marvelous improve- 

 ment which steam has wrought in farm machines, man, that 

 most important link, could not have been spared from the 

 soil. Even now three fourths of the population of the world 

 is engaged in agriculture. The United States, leading the 

 world in the use of power and machinery in rural industry, 

 keeps one third her laborers and two fifths her capital employed 

 in agricultural production. 



Nowhere else has the influence of power upon the production 

 of our food supply been felt as in America. In 1820, 97 per 

 cent, of the entire population lived on farms, using hand labor 

 for nearly every conceivable need. As late as 1810 the surplus 

 products raised by four families were scarcely sufficient to sup- 

 port one in town. Improvements in the crude farm tools and 

 the growing use of animal power added materially to the pro- 

 ductivity of the average farm family during the first half of 



