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| New England | Michigan | Iowa
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Total land area-- | | |
square miles | 62,000 | 57,500 | 55,500
Number of farms | 192,000 | 203,000 | 229,000
Acreage in farms | 20,500,000 | 17,500,000 | 34,600,000
Acres of improved | | |
land | 8,135,000 | 11,800,000 | 29,900,000
Value of farms | $640,000,000 | $690,000,000 | $1,835,000,000
Value of farm | | |
products | $170,000,000 | $147,000,000 | $365,000,000
Persons engaged in | | |
agriculture | 290,000 | 312,000 | 372,000
Rural population | 1,500,000 | 1,200,000 | 1,260,000
Value of products per| | |
acre of improved | | |
land | $20 | $12 | $12
Number of Granges | 1,200 | 725 |
Number of Grange | | |
members | 120,000 | 45,000 |
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CHAPTER XVI

AN UNTILLED FIELD IN AMERICAN EDUCATION

Agricultural education in this country has thus far been an attempt to
apply a knowledge of the laws of the so-called "natural" sciences to the
practical operations of the farm. Comparatively little attention has
been paid to the application of the principles of the "social" sciences
to the life of the farmer. All this is partly explained by the fact that
the natural sciences were fairly well developed when the needs of the
farmer called the scientist to work with and for the man behind the
plow, when a vanishing soil fertility summoned the chemist to the
service of the grain grower, when the improvement of breeds of stock and
races of plants began to appeal to the biologist. Moreover, these
practical applications of the physical and biological sciences are, and
always will be, a fundamental necessity in the agricultural question.

But in the farm problem we cannot afford to ignore the economic and
sociological phases. While it may be true that the practical success