But while under the system of individualism, industrial activities have been multiplied, wealth has been enormously increased, and human progress has been greatly advanced, many abuses and evils still remain. Many practical economic problems still await solution. Some of these have already been suggested in the preceding paragraphs; others remain to be presented. It is the purpose of this text to apply to some of the more important practical current problems of our modern industrial life the principles of economic science, and to endeavor to reach fair and just conclusions on controverted points.
II. THE AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES.
The land area of the United States, exclusive of Alaska and our island possessions, is a little less than 3,000,000 square miles, or an area somewhat less than the whole of Europe (3,700,000 square miles). Of this about 840,000 square miles, or a little more than one-fourth, still remains in the possession of the Federal Government and constitutes the public domain. The rest belonged to the original thirteen states, has been given to railways or to the states for educational purposes, or has been sold and given away to individual settlers. The policy of the Government in the disposition of the public domain has, on the whole, been to place it as rapidly as possible in the hands of cultivators, and also to use it as a fund to promote internal improvements and education. About 200,000,000 acres had been granted to railroads down to 1871, at which time land grants were discontinued, to secure their early construction. This policy has often been bitterly condemned, and it has been contended that the land should have been saved for actual settlers. It may however be said that without such grants the railroads would not have been built at as early a date as they actually were, and that without railroads the land was practically worthless, as it was too far removed from any navigable waterway to have access to a market. Moreover, the Federal Treasury lost nothing, for the sections of land alternating with those granted to the railroads were sold to settlers for $2.50 an acre instead of $1.25, the customary price for the public lands.
The grants of land for educational purposes have been generally approved. Upon such grants rests the establishment of our state agricultural colleges.
The unique and characteristic feature of the land policy of the United States has been the granting of land to the settler upon actual residence and cultivation for five
years. Such a grant of 160 acres is called a “homestead,” and since 1862 has been made to any citizen who is the head of a family or above the age of twenty-one years. In this way over 230,000,000 acres have been placed without cost in the possession of the actual cultivators. The newer public land states are peopled by proprietors, and there has never grown up in the United States a large class of rich land owners whose land is cultivated by a tenant peasant class, such as exists in England and parts of Europe. For this we must thank not only our land policy, but also the vast extent of unoccupied land that might be had almost for the asking.
Now, however, the public lands available for agriculture have been exhausted; practically all that remains is situated in the arid zone, and needs systematic irrigation before it can be made available for any use except that of grazing. There are still about 100,000,000 acres of choice land in Indian reservations, and as a consequence of the pressure upon this resource and also because of the unwisdom of the old reservation system, the policy has now been adopted of dividing these lands among the Indians in individual ownership, under careful safeguards, and of assimilating the Indians to the rest of the population.
The exhaustion of the fertile and well-watered lands of the Mississippi Valley has forced the later comers to have recourse to the arid soils in the almost rainless region west of the one hundredth meridian of longitude. The character of farming under such climatic conditions must of necessity be very different from what it is in the rainy districts, and the versatility and adaptability of the American farmer is well illustrated by the development which has taken place there. The first effort at the solution of the problem was in irrigation, a method which had been early practised by the Pueblo Indians, and later and most successfully by the Mormon settlers in Utah. By 1900, according to the census, 7,539,545 acres were under
irrigation. While most of the work up to that time had been done by private initiative, a demand arose for irrigation at government expense, in response to which Congress in 1902 provided for the building of irrigation works out of the proceeds of the sales of public lands. Regulation and conservation of the limited water supply by governmental authority, either state or national, is indeed essential to the success of irrigation and will probably be the policy of the future.
A second and even more interesting development of American agriculture is the so-called dry-farming which is being successfully introduced into the semi-arid regions. Carefully selected seeds and plants of crops especially adapted to these climatic conditions are used, and then a very careful and intensive method of tillage is followed. The soil is plowed deep and thoroughly pulverized so that the roots can strike down to the deeper levels and absorb all the moisture available. Extraordinary results have already been attained, and the region that the older geographies labeled “The Great American Desert” bids fair to become one of the most flourishing districts in the country.