The most important of these are summarized in the Year Book of
the Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Geological Survey of the
Department of the Interior issues frequent bulletins on mineral
products and stocks which are annually gathered together in the
volume Mineral Resources of the United States. Statistics of
commerce are compiled by the Department of Commerce and published
in an annual volume, Foreign Commerce and Navigation.
The U.S. Tariff Commission has also published several volumes in which commercial statistics are rearranged for use in tariff discussion, as The Wool-Growing Industry. Price statistics both for retail and wholesale trade are gathered and published by the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. A valuable series of studies on price statistics of different groups of commodities during the World War was published under the editorship of W. C. Mitchell by the War Industries Board, under the titles History of Prices during the War and Government Control over Prices. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also issues frequent bulletins showing wages in different trades in different parts of the country. The Interstate Commerce Commission issues an annual report, Statistics of Railways. Shipping statistics are published in the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Navigation. Immigration statistics are published in the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Immigration. Statistical tables in regard to the Federal finances are to be found in the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury, sometimes known as the Finance Report. This contains abstracts of the reports of the Comptroller, Treasurer, Commissioner of Internal Revenue and Director of the Mint. Of especial value for recent years are the annual reports and the monthly bulletins of the Federal Reserve Board. The bulletins contain a great variety of commercial and trade statistics collected by the 12 different reserve banks. More detailed statistical data may be found in the monthly bulletins issued by the several district banks.
The most serviceable single source-book is the annual volume, Statistical Abstract of the United States, first issued in 1878, published by the Department of Commerce. This assembles data on area and population, including census returns, immigration, and vital statistics; education and school statistics; agriculture, forestry and fisheries; manufactures and mines; occupations, labour, and wages; internal communication and transportation; merchant marine and shipping; foreign commerce; consumption estimates; prices; money, banking, and insurance; public finance and national wealth; army, navy, civil service, pensions, and election statistics. Most of the statistics are derived from official publications, but when they are wanting, reliance is placed upon private statistical agencies.
A useful statistical handbook relating to finance, crops, railways, trade and commerce is The Financial Review, an annual published by the Commercial and Financial Chronicle (New York).
In addition to Government statistics the following volumes should be noted: W. I. King, The Wealth and Income of the People of the United States (1917), a scholarly analysis and interpretation of official statistics; Raymond Pearl, The Nation's Food (1920), a volume growing out of the author's work as chief of the Statistical Division of the U.S. Food Commission during the war. The Committee on Economic Research of Harvard University has published an important work, Indices of General Business Conditions, by W. M. Persons (1919).
- (D. R. D.)
II. Agriculture
For the conditions of agriculture in the United States before 1910 see 1.414; for recent statistics see the section Statistics of the present article; for general progress since 1909 in biological, chemical and bacteriological research see article Agriculture 30.71; for development in any one state see the article on that state. For various aspects of progress see also, in vol. 32, the index-heading Agriculture and the other index-headings naming the various crops, products, processes, machines, etc.
The main characteristics—economic rather than technical—of agricultural activities in the United States during 1910-20 were the result of significant changes which must be traced through a period of more than one decade. The ten years ending with 1920 witnessed the close of an important epoch and the opening of a new epoch in the agricultural history of the United States. The closing epoch might well be called the pioneer epoch, that of agricultural expansion, or of agricultural exploitation. The new epoch might be called that of agricultural readjustment, development, or utilization. The names by which these two epochs are known are of little importance, but it is of great importance that all who are interested in the development of American agriculture get clearly in mind the fact to which all other facts in this connexion are subsidiary, namely, that ever since the beginning of American agriculture and down to the decade 1910-20 there was ample and fertile field in the West for the expansion of agriculture, but that during 1910-20 virtually the last of the arable part of the public domain passed into private ownership. There was no longer land available for homes for the surplus population from the older portions of the country. The western agricultural migration, which began almost with the first settlements on the Atlantic coast, was, owing to natural barriers and the absence of adequate transportation systems and other causes, more or less sporadic and irregular until about 1860.
The Agricultural Frontier in 1859.—In 1859 the frontier of agricultural development as determined by density of population of 6 or more to the sq. m., or the production of 100,000 bus. of wheat per county per annum had been pushed westward to include portions, varying in size, of the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. For the next 50 years there was a steady western and northern agricultural movement, until in 1910 virtually the only agriculturally unoccupied territory in the great plains was in Montana, Wyoming, western South Dakota, northwestern Nebraska, southwestern Kansas, New Mexico and western Texas. During the following decade 1910-20 virtually all the agricultural land that remained in the above described regions went into private ownership. By 1921 all the public domain suited to agriculture without irrigation, east of the Rocky Mountains, had ceased to be open to homestead claims and was undergoing agricultural development.
The Agricultural Frontier in 1920.—The 5,000-ft. contour on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains is generally considered the western boundary of the great plains, but to simplify computation the great plains may be regarded as including four-fifths of the area of Montana, one-third of Wyoming, one-half of Colorado, one-half of New Mexico, and all of Texas. The tract which came into agricultural production during 1860-1920 includes four-fifths of Montana; one-third of Wyoming; one-half each of Colorado and New Mexico; all of North and South Dakota, and Oklahoma; about seven-eighths of Minnesota; over one-half of Wisconsin; over two-thirds of Michigan; nearly one-half of Iowa; all but six counties (2,494 sq. m.) of Nebraska; all but 10 counties (4,684 sq. m.) of Kansas; all but 25 counties (19,356 sq. m.) of Texas; 14 counties (10,607 sq. m.) in Missouri; 28 counties (20,939 sq. m.) in Arkansas, and all but 27 counties (16,212 sq. m.) of Louisiana; the entire area amounting to no less than 1,096,607 sq. m., or 701,828,480 acres. Not all of this is arable land, but a higher percentage of it is arable than that of any other equal area on the North American continent, and contains at least 250,000 sq. m. of the richest agricultural land on the continent. More than half the total wheat crop of the United States for 1920 was grown in this area.
Coincident with the settlement of this plains region east of the Rocky Mountains was that of the inter-mountain and basin region and of much of the Pacific slope. The percentage of arable land west of the Rocky Mountains is much less than in the plains of the Mississippi Valley and the Lake region, but in the aggregate an immense area of land was brought into cultivation west of the Rockies during 1860-1920. There, as in the plains, practically all the land suitable for agriculture was appropriated and developed. There remained only small valleys and isolated areas and some Indian reservations that were to be soon thrown open to settlement. New reclamation projects were expected to develop, but if all the potentially agricultural land west of the Rocky Mountains were to be developed during 1920-30 the area would be small in comparison with that developed in each decade during 1860-1920. And it is probable that during 1920-30 as much land classed as farm land may be found unfit for that purpose and be devoted to other purposes, such as grazing and forestry, as will be brought into cultivation.
The significance of these facts does not seem to impress as it should either the public or the farmers. The habit of western migration, bred into the American people, during three centuries of practice is about to be broken.
The exhaustion of the public domain means that there is no longer available each year, as there was during 1860-1920, an area of virgin land in the Mississippi Valley, averaging 18,277 sq. m., or 11,697,280 ac., that is to say an area equal to one-third of the state of Iowa. It means that increased agricultural production by the simple process of breaking up virgin prairie is virtually at an end, so that future increases in food production must be attained by a more effective utilization of the land already occupied as farms.
The Increase of Agricultural Production and of Population for 60 Years.—The accompanying tables have been prepared from data contained in the 1920 Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture and the 1920 Census Reports. The yields of grain stated in these tables are not those of the Census Reports, but are the averages of the yields given in the Yearbook for each of the 10 years in each decade, except those for 1860 which represent the single year 1859, and for 1870 which represents the average for four years, 1866-9 inclusive. It is believed that this gives a better expression of the facts than using for each decade a single year's yield, such as is given in the Census Reports.
The two crops, wheat and corn, are chosen as an index of the general agricultural production for each decade since 1860. It is believed that they will serve the purposes of this discussion as well as or better than the more complex indexes used for more detailed investigation.
It will be seen that the proportionate increase by decades in population has been declining, having been 26.6% for 1860 and 14.9% for 1920, the greatest decrease in any decade having been between 1910 and 1920. There has been no such progressive decrease in production of either wheat or corn. The highest proportionate increase in the production of wheat was in 1880, when it was 49.3% over that of 1870. The highest proportionate increase in the yield of corn was also in 1880, when there was an increase of 41.9% over
