282 POWER AND THE PLOW 



the tiller of 25,000 profitable acres is hailed as captain of 

 industry. 



Yet the farmer has prospered. Our farms produce a million 

 dollars an hour, and one rural family feeds two in the city. 

 The farmer of to-day has wonderful agencies to make his work 

 easy. Farm machinery has been marvelously perfected. 

 Railroads simplify the exchange of products. Agricultural 

 scientists are solving his problems, and the telephone, telegraph, 

 and rural free delivery bring him daily news of the latest dis- 

 covery. The automobile, with its tremendous influence for 

 good roads, banishes isolation and puts him into quick touch 

 with markets. Modern conveniences in the home remove a 

 thousand hardships. Nearby towns, with banks, elevators, 

 and stores, handle his products and supply him with necessities 

 which formerly depended on his own ingenuity and skill. 



With all this assistance, the American farmer is falling 

 behind in his work. Four prosperous decades have brought 

 to our shores hordes of European peasants, have increased our 

 population one and a third times and each mouth takes a fourth 

 more wheat than before. In the past America has been called 

 upon to feed not only her own natural increase in population 

 and the outpouring of the nations of Europe, but millions of 

 those who remained behind. Faster, surer methods than had 

 ever before prevailed were necessary. Intensive cultivation 

 deferred to extensive production, and the task was accomplished. 

 The United States now faces a different problem that of 

 feeding a swiftly increasing population with a slowly increasing 

 acreage. Intensive methods and more power must be applied. 

 Teachings of agricultural scientists must be universally heeded. 

 Better seed, deeper plowing, more thorough tillage, must lay 

 the foundation for greater yields from each acre. Waste places 

 must be reclaimed, our whole productive area developed and 

 occupied. But our present needs are enormous, increasing 

 more swiftly than these ideals can be realized. Greater areas 

 must be brought immediately into productiveness, must main- 



