ture to financial legislation, taxation and the tariff, 

 and agricultural education. The relation of agricul- 

 ture to other industries, the relation of the state to 

 agriculture, and the work of the Department of 

 Agriculture may also be suggested. 



The Economic History of American Agriculture 



A Constituent Part of the History of 



Our Nation. 



After all is said, however, the fundamental reason 

 why the economic history of American agriculture 

 should be studied is that we may ultimately have a 

 well-balii <ced history of our nation. For it must be 

 remembe d, as I have already tried to show, that our 

 ugrariar .Astory is to be viewed not in the strict or 

 narrow ^ense, but in the broad sense so as to include 

 the whole life of the rural population, the influences 

 which have affected its progress, and the influence its 

 progress has in turn had on the course of events. 

 Tiius defined, the economic history of American agri- 

 culture is a constituent part of the history of the en- 

 tire people, closely interwoven with other phases of 

 our national progress; and to define it is to emphasize 

 a new point of view in the study of American develop- 

 ment. " The marking out of such a field is only a 

 fresh example of the division of scientific labor; it is 

 the provisional isolation, for the better investigation 

 of them, of a particular group of facts and forces," 

 in order that a true history of our national progress 

 and development may finally be written. 



Louis Bernard Schmidt. 



The Iowa State College of 

 Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, 

 Ames. 



17 



