December 19, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



551 



extravagant one-crop system, there was always 

 more cheap land farther west, to which 

 emigration could proceed. Furthermore, al- 

 though social prejudice was largely elimi- 

 nated in America, the utter ease and sim- 

 plicity with which a living could be gotten 

 out of the land on the one hand, and the 

 relatively small cash returns and the severe 

 discomforts of farm life on the other, have 

 correspondingly continually operated to tempt 

 the more ambitious minds away from the 

 farm. Something that anybody can do, does 

 not appeal, to the more enterprising and 

 gifted individuals. K'ot only that, but the 

 youth who ventured his fortunes in business 

 or the professions, embarked the more con- 

 fidently perhaps, because of the feeling that 

 if he failed elsewhere, he could still always 

 go back to the farm as a last resort and make 

 his living. Conditions, however, have rad- 

 ically changed. ISTot only is agriculture no 

 longer the simple occupation it once was, 

 but the greater portion of the best land is 

 now under the plow. IsTo new soil resources 

 remain to be drawn upon, except in the dry 

 plains area, and the arid regions of the west, 

 upon the development of which nature has 

 imposed severe limitations which can never 

 be entirely removed. The torrent to the west 

 has dwindled to a trickling stream, and from 

 now on we must bend our energies toward the 

 building up of the lands that have already 

 been exploited in a pioneer way. 



The population of the country is now 

 under present methods overtaxing the culti- 

 vated land for its support. It has been said 

 that we are consuming thirteen months of 

 wheat every twelve montlis. The ratio of 

 those engaged in agricultural pursuits, to 

 those engaged in all other occupations, in the 

 decades since 1870 is as follows : 



TABLE I 



Ratio of Those Engaged 

 in Agriculture to Those 

 Year in Other Occupations 



1870 1: 2.10 



1880 1: 2.24 



1890 1: 2.65 



1900 1: 2.80 



1910 1 : 3.01 



In other words, whereas in 1870 one person 

 engaged in agriculture represented two per- 

 sons engaged in other occupations, in 1910 

 there were three persons in other occupations 

 to one in agriculture. 



In respect to percentage of the population, 

 the following relationship is found to exist. 



TABLE II 



Per Cent, of TotalPopu- 

 lation Engaged in 

 Year Agriculture 



1870 15.43 



1880 15.38 



1890 13.68 



1900 13.66 



1910 13.76 



In the forty-year period up to 1910, the 

 percentage of the total population engaged in 

 agricultural pursuits fell off 1.67 per cent, 

 while the percentage relation of the ratio of 

 the number engaged in agriculture to those 

 in the other classified occupations, meaning 

 thereby largely, effective young and adult 

 males, has widened by 30 per cent, since 

 1870. 



If we now turn to the rate of production 

 in agriculture for the same period, dividing 

 the United States into more or less homo- 

 geneous districts, we find the acre-value of all 

 agricultural products raised in the different 

 crop-growing regions of the country to be as 

 follows : 



TABLE III 



From the above table, there appears to be 

 no consistent, consecutive increase in the 



