. Sec. 11. Rapid growth of farmers'
selling cooeperation. Sec. 12. Some economic features of farmers' selling
cooeperation. Sec. 13. Cooeperation in buying. Sec. 14. Need of agricultural
credit. Sec. 15. Recent provisions for farm loans.

Sec. 1. #Size of farms, and total farming area#. The average area of
farms has varied from a maximum of 203 acres, in 1850 (the first
figures), to a minimum of 134 acres in 1880, being 138 acres in 1910.
A better index, perhaps, is the average improved area per farm, which
has been more nearly stationary, varying from a maximum of 80 acres
in 1860 to a minimum of 71 acres in 1870 and 1880, being 75 acres in
1910. Here again the statistics require interpretation, for in the
spread of the frontier the addition of large farms in the arid and
semi-arid regions may raise the average, or the breaking up of large
plantations in the South may decrease the average, without this
indicating any essential change in the technical conditions of farming
in the country generally. Since about 1900 the total area in farms has
increased very slowly. Between 1900 and 1910 the increase was only 4.8
per cent; whereas a larger increase occurred in the area of improved
land, 15.4 per cent, and the unimproved area in farms decreased
5.6. Future changes of farm areas may be expected to be of this same
nature, mainly in the improvement of rough pastures, swamps, partly
cleared woodlands, and desert lands awaiting irrigation. An increasing
population will have to be provided with food and other products of
agriculture on a farming area that henceforth will be increasing less
rapidly than it has in the past and than the population increases.

Sec. 2. #Influences acting upon the size of farms#. In these averages
for the whole country many conflicting influences unite and neutralize
each other. Making for smaller farms is the breaking up of large
grazing areas in the West into smaller general purpose farms or
irrigated fruit districts, and of larger general farms in the North
and East into small poultry, flower, and fruit farms. Opposed to this
is a movement toward the merging of farms of 50 to 100 acres into
larger farms of 300 acres, more or less. The economic cause of this
movement is interesting and important. The typical and economic size
of farms when the Atlantic states were settled, was determined by the
use of hand tools, which permitted a man and his family to operate a
farm of about 75 acres of w