ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 257 



vincing and impressive. Two hundred and fifty years ago the Puritans 

 started in to subdue a continent. "By 1800, the United States no where 

 touched the Gulf of Mexico and nowliere crossed the Mississippi," much 

 less had our agriculture and our civilization reached these limits. By 

 1850 we had acquired our present continental territorial limits, Alaska 

 excepted, but the great west and northwest was agricultrually yet an un- 

 discovered country. 



In 1875 central Iowa, at present one of the finest agricultural areas 

 in the world, was a wilderness. Since that time we have swept the con- 

 tinent with our agricultural operations. We have rolled up against the 

 Pacific coast with such force that the shock has sent us thousands of 

 miles across the sea. 



The elements that have entered into the problem have been a great, 

 fertile, treeless, and easily subdued plain, in a climate admirably 

 adapted to cereal production, one of which, maize, produces twice the 

 food per acre of any cereal known to the civilized nations before the 

 discovery of America; improved machinery, including the steel plow, the 

 mower, the self-binder, and the threasher; transcontinental steam trans- 

 partation, and a people of high intelligence and great energy, 



Do all the elements in the problem still exist? Let us look a mo- 

 ment. The animals upon the farms and ranches of the United States 

 increased with such rapidity between 1785 and 1892 that in the latter 

 year we had not only the largest number of animals but much the larg- 

 est number in proportion to population we have had in forty years. 



Now look at the other side of the shield. Since that time the ani- 

 mals upon the farms and ranches of the United States have decreased 

 with such almost lightning rapidity that in 1900 eight years later, we 

 had not only less, but much less live stock in proportion to population 

 than we have had at any time in forty years. 



The increase in acreage of cultivated crops between 1870 and 1890 

 was likewise greater than the increase in population. The increase in 

 acreage of cultivated crops in the past thirty years is greater than was 

 the total acreage in 1870. In other words, we have subdued more of na- 



