farms was 1,449,073, but in 1910 they numbered 6,361,502, or more than four times as many. The average size of farms has dropped in the sixty years from 202.6 acres to 138.1 acres, which is a falling off of 32 per cent. The av erage acreage of improved farm land, ho vever, has remained much more constant. This average stood at 78 acres in 1850, and has varied but little from that figure since that time. The average in 1910 was 75.2 acres of land for the improved farm. How has farming kept up with population? Measured in total farm area it has fallen behind population. There were in 1910 nearly four (3.9) times as many people in Continental United States as in 1850, but the total area of farms has multiplied only three fold during the same period. That is, this increase was but three-fourths as rapid as that of population. years ago the farms and their contents were valued at $3,967,300,000, but in 1910 this valuation had increased more than ten fold to the enormous aggregate of $40,991.400,000. Such values as these are absolutely beyond our comprehension. But most striking of all is the fact that more than half of this vast farm wealth has been gained within the last ten years. That is, as much was added in ten years as was gained in the entire previous history of the nation. Probably nothing like this expansion has ever taken place in the history of the world. How has it come about? A careful comparison of the results of farming for 1909 and 1899 makes plain the answer. Here is a table showing what American farms produced during each of those two years, and what the farmers received for their products. It presents an astonishing array. II. FARM VALUES FOR SIXTY YEARS IN THE UNITED STATES. Improved farm area, however, fortunately tells another story. During the sixty years the area of improved farms has increased 4.2 times, which compares well with the 3.9 fold increase in population. To put the matter in another way, total farm land sixty years ago averaged 12.6 acres to every inhabitant, but in 1910 this average had dropped to 9.6 acres, a loss of three acres per person. Improved land, however, in 1850 averaged 4.9 acres per capita; today this average has increased to 5.2 acres, all of which tends to show that so far as tilled land is concerned the gain more than keeps pace with the increase in population. Some very remarkable changes have come about during these years in farm values. Here is a table that shows these changes by decades. as to land and buildings, implements and machinery, live stock, and the total values comprised in these several items. Above table makes an impressive array. Here is the answer to the question whether our farmers are prospering. Take total values for example as shown in the fourth column. Sixty The following table shows that the total receipts for farm products have nearly doubled in the past ten years, that is, their values have practically kept pace with the increase in the values of land. It is a reasonable conclusion, therefore, that the land has gained in valuation because its products have so enormously increased in value. But here is the striking facts that the quantities of products raised have not kept pace with their values. On the whole there has been no larger increase in production than could be accounted for by the increase of land under cultivation. In ten years improved land has gained 15.4 per cent in area, but in the same time the production of cereals, which make up about 30 per cent of the values of farm products, increased in quantity only 1.7 per cent, but their values were higher by nearly 80 per cent. Cotton increased 12 per cent in quantity and 117 per cert in value, while hay improved 23 per cent in quantity and 70 per cent in value. It is easy to see therefore that the tremendous there has been a gain in values for the decade in New England of 35.6 per cent or about onethird the rate for the entire country. The middle Atlantic section has made the smallest gain, only 28 per cent. Contrast this with the central states east of the Mississippi where the gain in values for the decade was 78 per cent in the north and 82.5 per cent in the south. Or consider the valley states west of the Mississippi where the gain was 132.5 per cent in the north and 137 per cent in the south. The south Atlantic states went above the average with an increase of 103 per cent. But the heaviest gains have been in the far west with 150 per cent on the coast and 192 per cent in the mountain states. The general development of the various sections of the nation can perhaps be best measured by the acreage in improved farms. The sixty years under consideration show marked variations. New England had some 11 million acres under cultivation in 1850. There was a rise to 13 millions in 1880, the high-water mark. Since then the acreage has steadily declined, until it is but seven and a quarter millions today. Nowhere else in the country has there been such a falling off, though the middle Atlantic states, of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, reached their climax in 1880 with 33 million acres which has decreased to 29 million in 1910. Other sections show steady and in some parts startlingly rapid improvement. The south Atlantic states have gone up from 30 million acres of improved lands in 1850 to 48 millions in 1910, a gain of 60 per cent. Growth in Farm Acreage, Continental United States, 1,903,000,000 Acres. course, five states-has increased its improved lands from 23 million acres in 1850 to 89 millions in 1910, while the southern section of four states has enlarged from 19 millions to 44 millions. On the west side of the river the gain has been even more notable. Seven states in the north have enlarged their improved farm lands from less than four million acres in 1850 to over 164 million acres in 1910, and four states in the south have advanced from three million acres sixty years ago to 58 million acres today. Most marvelous has been the development in the west. In 1850 the territory now covered by the eight states in the Rocky Mountain district had but 182,000 acres under cultivation, today those states are cultivating 16 million acres. The three states on the Pacific coast sixty years ago had improved only 165,000 acres of their great territory, today their improved farm lands aggregate 22 million acres. This vast western country, whose eleven states comprise almost 40 per cent of the entire land area of Continental United States, has so far but eight per cent of the improved farm area of the nation. It could multiply its acreage five fold and then only equal the average development of the entire country. Probably even a Westerner would be put to it to foretell what will be the results in his country from another sixty years. Gain in Live Stock 1850..$544,000,000 1880.$1,577,000,000 1910.$4,925,000,000 How Our Farmers Have Grown Rich: Values of Farms and Their Contents "Few Folks Fall Sick From Overwork, It's What They Do When They DON'T Work ETTING circulation for a farm paper is a the territory thoroughly and completely. The Farmer's Review and The National Stockman and Farmer In most every big city we go into we find one or two leading Farmers are no different than city folks. And in every locality just the instant you mention the subject. Why? Just the or most of them-have grown from childhood on their farms The National Stockman and Farmer-covering Ohio, Penn- If you are interested write today for sample issues and further The Farmers Review 91,335 Subscribers in Illinois and Bordering States The National 125,185 Subscribers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc., etc. |