POWER AND THE FOOD SUPPLY 281 



tial power of our farm equipment is represented by our machin- 

 ery of distribution, and double the annual use is made of it. 



If George Washington were to come to earth now, and 

 should visit the steel mills at Gary, or some busy machine-shop 

 where huge plowing tractors are being made, he would be 

 hopelessly bewildered. It is all beyond the philosophy of a 

 man who lived one hundred years ago. There is hardly a 

 process which he would understand. But if a contemporary 

 of Moses, who was a good farmer, should come to earth and 

 visit an ordinary American farm he would recognize practi- 

 cally every process. The industrial revolution, the steam en- 

 gine, electricity, everything that goes to make up the steel 

 age, have in fifty years created a greater difference in the 

 production of the world, except in agriculture, than has been 

 made since the days of Pharaoh. The corresponding revolu- 

 tion in agriculture has only just begun. 



When Colonial America was in the age of homespun, the 

 manufacture of the necessities of life kept workers on the farm. 

 Mighty cities were impossible, since four families in the country 

 could support but one in town by their surplus products. 

 But when the steam engine entered the factory, capital and 

 the most ambitious blood of the country were drawn to the 

 cities. The farm worker, hard pressed by the demand for 

 foodstuffs, sought larger areas, more power animals and better 

 implements to meet the new necessity. Ox teams carried the 

 pioneer far into the land of promise. He was one who must 

 endure isolation, great hardships, and small returns. His 

 inherited wisdom went for naught. He became an inventor, 

 an experimentalist. Communication was slow, but that 

 meant little, for principles of scientific agriculture were not yet 

 formulated. Hard work prevailed where study was impossible 

 and money for equipment wanting. The independent settler, 

 working out his own salvation, disdained cooperative effort 

 when real opportunity came. His development was one-sided, 

 his farm organization small and unbusiness-like. Even to-day 



