16 BULLETIN 1458, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
In Australia, owing to the expansion of wheat production into 
areas where the climatic risk was great, yields continued to fall 
until the closing years of the nineteenth century (Table 4). Since 
1900 the record of wheat yields indicates a rising trend. In certain 
respects the situation in Argentina and Canada 1s considerably like 
that in Australia and expansion of the wheat area onto drier lands 
has tended to depress the acre yields for those countries. 
In India the fertility problem has been serious for centuries. The 
small quantity of available animal manures (the manure is used 
mostly for fuel) and the poverty of the people, precluding the use 
of commercial fertilizers, prevent an increase of soil productivity 
by these means. | 
In discussing the nitrogen problem Albert Howard states: 
As far as combined nitrogen is concerned, a rough condition of equilibrium 
has been reached in Indian agriculture. The annual gains and losses are 
about equal. This is indicated by the records of crop production in the 
United Provinces from the time of Akbar down to the present day. For the 
last 300 ae the producing power of the soil has not appreciably changed 
(6, p. 71). 
During the last 35 years a slowly rising trend is indicated in the 
record of acre-yields of wheat in India. This is probably the reflec- 
tion of the educational efforts of the agricultural colleges bringing 
about somewhat better cultural methods, soil moisture conservation, 
and the use of improved seed (6, pp. 71-74). 
REGIONAL CHANGES IN PRODUCTIVITY PER ACRE IN TEE 
UNITED STATES AS INDICATED BY CROP-YIELD STATISTICS 
In discussing the trend of acre-yields in the United States refer- 
ence has been made to the greater changes that have occurred in 
certain of the older farming regions of the country during the last 
half century. 
Going back to the early decades of the last century there was a 
general feeling that much of the soils of the East were worn out. 
The era of virgin fertility in the older settlements was apparently 
coming te an end. 
From the settlers pouring into the regions west of the Appala- 
chians the news was sent back East of the fertility of the soils of 
the new cheap or free lands. Farm abandonment in the East was. 
pointed to as evidence of soil deterioration, although the changes 
brought about as a result of industrial development in the United 
States may have been factors in making crop production on some 
of this land unprofitable. 
Owing to the prevalence of poor and slipshod cultural methods on 
soils that were low in their original store of fertility, crop yields 
were low. Agricultural writers of this period alluded constantly to 
the crude methods in vogue (1, p. 85). Inadequate capital for 
farm improvements, inefficient and wasteful practices, and rising 
labor costs were prime factors in keeping acre-yields at a low level. 
With large areas of cheap new farming lands available in the West, 
it is not to be wondered that progress continued at a very slow rate 
in the older farming regions. Although the benefits to be derived 
SSee Appendix, Table VII, for actual annual yields, 
