Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 March 1910 — ONE MILLION NEW FARMS. [ARTICLE]

ONE MILLION NEW FARMS.

WenderZnl Increase la Last Decade —Production Haa Doubled. Nearly 1,000,000 new farms have been created In the United States ffurIng the. last ten years. In the last ten years the total number of farms has increased 18 per cent. In the older States from Ohio eastward there has been going on for more than twenty years a tendency toward the amalof farms distant from market into larger holdings. On the other hand, this section has witnessed the cutting up into smaller sizes of many farms nearer to market. There are now almost three times as many farms as In 1870, says the American Agriculturist, and an unprecedented Increase in the value of farm lands and live stock is the more momentous fact revealed by this inquiry. The land in farms, with their buildings, Improvements and live stock, is to-day almost $30,000,000,000, a gain of 44 per cent in ten years. Present values are two and one-half times the farm values of twenty years ago. In the North Central States the increase in the value of farms is 43 per cent, in the South Central States 58 per cent, in the North Atlantic 13 per cent and in the South Atlantic 34 per cent. The value of farm production in 1909, according to this exhibit, shows an increase over ten years earlier of Just about 100 per cent for the United States. The increase in ten years for North Atlantic States is 71 per cent, South Atlantic States 57 per cent, North Central 96 per cent. This represents the fair worth of all crops and the other returns from the soil, including live stock produce apd the increase of live stock born during the year. The farm products of the year Just closed were worth almost four times as much as the product of 1889. Summarizing the results, conditions have changed. American agriculture must change with these conditions. Population is overtaking consumption. Even with this increase in quality and value of farm products,, the United States exported during 1909 a smaller quantity of agricultural produce in bulk than in 1900, although the value of such exports was $923,000,000, compared with $867,000,000 for 1907.