ecreasing
returns to labor in agriculture, unless this movement can be
counteracted by the spread of better methods in agriculture--not
European peasant methods, but new American methods consistent with
high labor-incomes. A good deal of our farm land is undoubtedly too
intensively used now in view of present and prospective commodity
prices and wages. Maladjustment of land uses has resulted
from mistaken judgment, from changing conditions as to prices,
transportation, and markets, and from loss of soil fertility. There
are thus, on nearly every old farm, some fields that would better be
in pasture and much hillside pasture that would better be woodland. It
is often declared extravagantly that our country could support easily
the total population of China, or as great a population per square
mile as that of Italy. If it did so it would be only on the penalty
of lowering wages toward, if not quite to, the level of the Chinese
coolie or of the Italian peasant. Great metropolitan dailies gravely
present as an argument in favor of unrestricted immigration, the
proposition that "if" the cheaper immigrants would but go upon our
"waste" land (which they refuse to do), and raise food by European
methods the problem of the rising cost of food in the cities would be
solved. This urban ideal of a frugal, low-paid agricultural peasantry
can hardly be adopted in America as the national ideal. Rather,
it would seem, any movement toward more intensive agriculture that
necessitates a lowering of the standard of living of the masses of the
American people will, when it is recognized, be condemned and opposed.

Sec. 9. #The new agriculture#. Agricultural method, the technic of
farming, has been constantly progressing for two hundred years in
Europe and in America, Were it not for this, the great growth of
population on this combined area would have been quite impossible.
But the betterments since about 1890 in America have been especially
great. They are mostly the first large fruits of the scientific study
made possible by the land-grant colleges and agricultural experiment
stations fostered by state and national, legislation. These many
diverse improvements are grouped under the general title of "the
new agriculture." Its chief features are: new machinery and other
labor-saving methods; better methods of cultivation of the soil;
better selection of seed; introduction of new plants and trees from
abroad to utilize low-grade lands; plan