As a result, the United States ranks high in the production of the world's staple agricultural products. Even in its present undeveloped condition it may be said to be the world's agri cultural state. For here is produced three fourths of the world's maize crop, two-thirds of its cotton and one-fifth. of its wheat. Ex port of farm products trebled in the last gen eration and under war conditions has grown enormously, assisted by a fundamental re vision of food habits at home, but the increase is not in quantity but rather in value. It repre sents, too, rather extent of new land brought under cultivation, than permanent increased efficiency in farming. Cotton and breadstuffs lead, followed by meat and dairy products and animals. These have been our most successful and staple products in the immediate past, but a thoroughgoing reorganiztion of our agri culture is necessary if we are to maintain our growth and add new elements to bur surplus for export. With practically one-half of the present farm area unimproved and with the many lines of leadership already entered upon, this ought not to be impossible.
Factors of Future It has been said that there are still three great oppor tunities in American agriculture, viz., the rice lands of Texas, the timber lands of Oregon and the new wheat lands of the Northwest. But there is opportunity, not only as here for in vestment in and development of new lands, but in all parts, even in the oldest States, in fact, wherever a good crop can be grown and a good market can be found. This fact is at the bottom of the aback to the land* and abuy a farm* movements to-day. These movements, however, are chiefly of significance as an appre ciation of the real worth of country life, for it must be confessed that the opportunity of to-day can only be surely availed of by those of farm ing and tradition. Never was farming so diffi cult. It will be in those whom country life will keep on the farm, and not in those who come to it, that the strength of the anew agriculture* will lie. The immigrant, however, is com ing upon the land, and would seem ideally adapted to its future needs.
Since 1880, irrigation has been employed on a large scale in reclamation of the arid region which covers nearly one-third of the country. Already some 14,M0,000 acres are irrigated and producing varied and valuable crops, as well as conducing to a high type of local life. State laws and administration in the dozen States affected, with the National Reclamation Act of 1902, have reclaimed large areas and ultimately more than one-tenth of the entire area will be under cultivation. Not only reservoirs, but pumping and artesian supplies are being used. The new ideas and practices of
irrigation farming will have great influence upon agriculture in the older States and hasten the coming of intensive farming.
Improved methods of cultivation are making it possible to grow crops by ((dry farming* on the portions of the and region hitherto con sidered irreclaimable.
An ever more important phase of the con servation of national resources, directly affecting agricultural progress, is drainage. At least 100,000,000 acres of land, well located and rich, but wholly or partially unproductive, because in swamps or overflowed seasonably, may be re claimed by the co-operation of private owners, aided by State and national action. Much has been done in various States, but the work has barely begun. Even stile drainage,* the need for which is very wide spread, has since its introduction in 1835 not progressed as it should. The farmer by tradition leaves too much to nature; the future demands scientific agriculture all round.
Larger returns from land already in use, even more than bringing new lands under cul tivation, will chiefly characterize future farm ink. We may expect to see irrigation even in the humid region (where rainfall, although sufficient in amount, is unevenly distributed) brought into use, as in Europe, as insurance 'against drought, and as a means of increasing production. Fertilizers are rapidly coming into use where the virginal fertility is lessening owing to single-cropping or a too simple sys tem of rotation, combined with poor tillage. Soil fertility is increasingly guarded by stock raising, and though soil making is still in its infancy here, as contrasted with Europe, yet better tillage, longer rotation series and better husbandry all round are inevitable, and may forestall the universal need for artificial and commercial fertilizer. Not only will the soil be safeguarded, but better husbandry will, as expe rience shows, save the stock and crops from diseases and pests, such as acattle tick* and the boll weevil.* An industry so old and so controlled by custom as agriculture, and which has come to be regarded as characterized above all by sta bility, does not frankly or readily accept change. But the very foundations of American agriculture have been continuously shifting with the various stages of evolution from pio neer to well-settled condition, the movements of population, the advent of machinery, the shifting of regions of production, the rise of markets, the assimilation of foreign immigrants on the land, the adjustment of the freed negro.