[[4]] "Agricultural pursuits" includes agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry. These figures from the United States Census, 1910, Vol. IV, p. 41, are only approximately exact, owing to almost insuperable difficulties in classifying occupations. See Vol. IV, p. 19.
[[5]] Thirteenth Census of the United States, Vol. V, Agriculture, p. 51.
[[6]] The improved farm acreage increased 15.4 per cent., and the acreage devoted to the principal crops 9.9 per cent.
[[7]] The new lands, moreover, are not so good as the old. From 1850 to 1885 the lands brought into cultivation (Illinois, Iowa, etc.) were better than the earlier area, but since 1885 the farmers have driven forward into more arid lands further removed from transportation. "Across the Great Plains, the farmer has pushed closer and closer to the base of the Rockies and, as he has done so, the difficulty of producing a bushel of corn or wheat has continually increased."—King. (Willford Isbell.) "The Wealth and Income of the People of the United States," New York (Macmillan), 1915: pp. 23, 24.
[[8]] For the comparability of the years 1909 and 1899, see Census Volume on Agriculture, p. 537.
[[9]] Actually 9.9 per cent.
[[10]] Total land area equals 1,903,289,600 acres.
[[11]] Thompson, Warren S. "Population: A Study in Malthusianism." Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Columbia University Vol. LXIII, No. 3. New York, 1915.
[[12]] "The Agricultural Element in the Population:" American Statistical Association Quarterly, March, 1916, p. 52.
[[13]] The dwarf farms found in many parts of Europe are even less economical. The Bavarian, French, or Belgian peasant secures more per acre than the American farmer but much less per hour or year of work. "Small scale farming, as we have defined it," says Prof. Thomas Nixon Carver, "invariably means small incomes for the farmers, though the land is usually well cultivated and yields large crops per acre." "The French or the Belgian peasant (because of the smallness of his farm) frequently finds it more profitable to dispense altogether with horses, or even oxen, as draft animals, using rather a pair of milch cows, or only a single cow, for such work as he cannot do with his own muscles." "He would likewise find a reaping or a mowing machine a poor investment. The general result of such small scale staple farming is necessarily the use of laborious and inefficient methods."—"Principles of Rural Economics," pp. 253-54. New York, 1911.