AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. Land and Labor.— The two fac tors which, more than any others, have given character to American agriculture are: First, an abundance of land and, sec ond, a scarcity of labor. These two fac tors almost necessarily belong together be cause land is abundant whenever and wherever there is not enough labor to cultivate it thor oughly, and labor is scarce whenever and wher ever there is more land than can be thoroughly cultivated. The necessary and logical result of this combination of abundant land and scarce labor is extensive as opposed to inten sive farming. Extensive farming consists in using a smallquantity of labor a large quantity in lancl, whereas intensive farming consists in using a large quantity of labor on a small quantity of land. As extensive farm ing is the logical system in a country where land is abundant and labor scarce, so intensive farming is the logical system in an over-popu lated country where labor is abundant and land scarce.
Not only was the character of our agricul ture largely determined by this combination of scarce labor and abundant land, but many of our political and social institutions, and much of our political and social history as welL It gave rise, for example, to the institution of slavery which was primarily an agricultural institution, together with all that grew out of that institution. Scarce labor and abundant land mean necessarily dear labor and cheap land. This is a situation extremely favorable to those farmers who expect to work with their own hands. Cheap and abundant land means free opportunity for self-employment on the part of the agricultural laborer, whereas scarce and dear land means limited opportunity for self-employment, most of those who work the land being compelled to work for others. Scarce and dear labor means necessarily liberal income for the self-employed laborer. On the other hand, this is a situation which is very unfavorable to the proprietary farmer who does not expect to work with his own hands but has to depend upon the labor of others to cultivate his lands. The cheapness of land reduces his income from that source and the scarcity and dearness of labor makes it difficult for him to secure the necessary help.
In Virginia and the other southern colonies this difficulty was increased by the exceedingly liberal land policy. In Virginia, for example, there were three methods by which an• indi vidual might acquire title to land:* One was to buy a share of the stock of the London Com pany, to which the land had been granted by the British Crown. These shares were called
°Bills of Adventure° and the holder of each share, besides participating in the profits of the company, was entitled to receive without fur ther cost 100 acres of land. The second method was by meritorious service. Ministers of religion, physicians and other public serv ants, including those who had performed val uable manual labor, were sometimes granted tracts of land as rewards of merit. The third method, which was really the one generally used, was known as °head right.° Under this right anyone who transported to the colony any person, including himself, at his own ex pense, could secure, without further expense, 50 acres of land for every person so transport ed. Later on this method became so laxly ad ministered that any free person could secure land under it without much regard to the original requirements.
This liberal policy made it extremely dif ficult for any large landowner to keep suffi cient help to cultivate his land. No man was willing to work for wages when he could, practically without money and without price, secure a tract of land and become a land owner himself. The difficulty was first met by the system of indentured servants. An in dentured servant was simply a person who was too poor to pay for his own transportation to the colony. In order to get there he would agree to work for a term of years for some one who would advance the money. After his term of service had expired he became a free man and could become a landowner on the same easy terms as anyone else. This gave the large landowner an opportunity to keep a laborer for a short term of years but his labor supply had to be constantly renewed. Under these conditions African slavery seemed to furnish a solution of the problem which confronted the large landowner. It was the ruin of the small white farmer who worked his own land and who thereafter had to sell the products of his own labor in competition with that of slave labor. If they had been awake to the situation they would at once have prevented the establishment of slavery or, later, have abolished it, since they vastly outnumbered the large landowners who alone found slavery profitable.