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agriculture decreased in the same period from 50 per cent, of 

 the entire male population to 35 per cent., and, in spite of that, 

 the production per capita has increased, as just stated, by 30 

 per cent. The American farmer is becoming more efficient as 

 a producer of food. Now, we may well compare our situation 

 with conditions in China, where 75 per cent, of all the males 

 are employed in agriculture, where the struggle for food is 

 more intense, where individual efficiency is not so great. Labor- 

 saving machinery and appliances have given the people of the 

 United States a different measure of efficiency, an efficiency 

 determined by man power rather than acre yields. The farmer 

 of America is the most efficient producer of food the world 

 has ever known, and his future progress will be sound only in 

 so far as it may be consistent with the conservation of human 

 effort. You may be surprised to learn that in many localities 

 where there has been the most education, where there has been 

 the most extensive introduction of the telephone, of the rural 

 mail service and improved roads, the population of the rural 

 districts has shown a tendency to decline. In these localities 

 the acreage of the average farmer has increased. When he is 

 not using a gasoline tractor, the American farmer is using three 

 or four horses where formerly he used one or two horses. There 

 is a pronounced tendency to make more and more of the time 

 and the efforts of the individual with the aid of labor-saving 

 machinery.. In other words, we are not in a position in this 

 country to change our methods radically. Over large areas 

 of the United States we are not drifting towards more in- 

 tensive tillage of the land, but rather toward more extensive 

 tillage; not the application of larger amounts of labor on a 

 given area; not hand work, but machine work. There is a 

 striving for larger returns for the efforts of the individual, 

 and that often means larger acreage. So that, while farmers 

 themselves in their conservative way may oppose the increasing 

 of the tillable area in this country, fearing competition, a sur- 

 plus of food and a lowering of prices, yet there is no other 

 logical conclusion, when we study our agricultural history, than 

 that in the general farming sections of the United States man 



