The United States as a Farming Country

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Fie. 16. Western Europe has about one fourth the land area of the United States, with about
50,000,000 more people to be supported by the land. Would you expect such a region to be mainly
agricultural or mainly industrial ?

Basin district which lies between the Rocky Mountains and the Coast
Ranges, are too dry; others, like the Rocky Mountain district,
are too rugged. Still, there remains nearly half of the area of the
United States that can be successfully farmed.
System of cultivation. As yet, most of this favorable half has
been farmed only by the method of exfensive cultivation; that is,
crops are planted once a year over broad areas, with little or no
fertilizer, and are largely left to take care of themselves until harvest
 time. This method means a small yield per acre, but it allows
one man, with the help of horses and machines, to cultivate many
acres, so that large returns are possible.
Our crops might be doubled or even trebled if our lands were to be
as inlensively cultivated as most of western Europe, China, and
Japan. In those regions, with the help of fertilizers and with proper
care to remove the weeds, much of the land commonly yields two
large crops a year. As our population increases, farming will presumably
 become less extensive and more intensive; for the area of
new lands that can be occupied is fast diminishing. Under intensive
 cultivation the great size of our country will be a factor even
more important than it is now in maintaining our agricultural leadership
 among the nations.