140 The World's Production and Consumption of Food. 
suited, in some of the Western States — as, for instance, Kansas — • 
to some 20 or 25 per cent. It is believed that all the best land in 
the United States has been at length appropriated under definite 
indi^’idual or corporate ownership, and hence in part the reason for 
the increase of value in such land which has taken place. It must 
be understood that the area of “ best land ” in the States bears a 
small proportion to the whole of the vast area of the country, and 
that a great deal of inferior land is still available. There is, how- 
ever, a large proportion of worthless land, in addition to “ best ” and 
“ inferior,” as will have been noticed by those whose lot, like my own, 
has been to travel over great distances, in various directions, in that 
country. We hear of many deserted farms in the Eastern States, 
but these are worn-out farms, consisting of land — of which kind there 
is a very large proportion all over the country — for the most part, 
which is pretty soon worn out under the farming methods which are 
in vogue, everything being sold off the farms and nothing bought on. 
It has been the custom of some would-be authorities to declare, 
and consequently of other people to assume, that the vast plains 
lying “west of the 100th parallel * a favourite geographical ex- 
pression — were for the most part fertile and adapted to cultivation. 
This bubble, however, has now been sufficiently pricked, for, as Mr. 
Davis says, “Successive armies of settlers have invaded these desic- 
cated plains, but, after expending their means and suffering deplor- 
able hardships, have found it necessary to abandon land and improve- 
ments. This is the area from which arises that perennial cry for 
aid, as it is also the land from which a refluent wave of population 
moves eastward with as much regularity as the return of Autumn.” 
It is nevertheless true that a large proportion of these plains is 
more or less fertile — or, rather, would be fertile but for the want of 
rain or of artificial irrigation. The great arid zone of the United 
States is no doubt potentially able to “ bread the world,” as I once 
heard an enthusiastic American express it, but, in order to realise 
this potentiality, water for irrigation is an absolute sine qud non. 
These plains cover an area whose immensity is hardly realisable from 
figures, but their oceanic vastness and weird desolation, unrelieved 
by tree or mountain, are realised by those who have travelled 
therein. These boundless plains are understood, geographically 
speaking, to contain nearly one thousand million acres, or about 
thirty times the area of the whole of England ! Here is what 
Mr. Davis says on the stupendous problem of irrigating these arid 
plains of Central North America : — 
“ Could water for irrigation be obtained, much of the plains region 
could be made productive ; but most of the streams penetrating it are 
even now yearly drained dry by irrigating canals, which supply water 
to irrigate but the smallest fraction of these immense areas. During 
the seasons of 1887, 1888, 1889, and 1890 (and nearly every year of 
late), many miles of such canals remained dry daring the entire 
‘ This, of course, refers to the meridian of 100° West Longitude — a line 
passing through the States of Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas. — E d. 
