NUMBER OF PERSONS ENGAGED 3 states the Census Report, "the agricultural industry, so far as can be measured by statistics as to the number of farms, farm land, and improved land, more than kept pace with the population." But it has failed to do so since. "The population increased 116.3 per cent between 1850 and 1880, while the number of farms increased 151.9 per cent; but from 1880 to 1910 the population increased 83.4 per cent, the number of farms only 58.7 per cent, and the improved farm land only 68 per cent." It is true that the value of farm property showed a gain of one hundred per cent in the ten-year period from 1900 to 1910, increasing from some $20,000,000,000 to $40,000,000,000. Yet this gain of $20,000,000,000 is rather an illusory gain, since $15,000,000,000 of it represent merely an increase in land value and no added investment of capital whatever. This "unearned increase" in value therefore is a detriment rather than a benefit to the country at large, and is perhaps an evil to the farmers themselves. For it makes farms constantly higher in price to the would-be farmer and hence ownership more difficult to attain. It means more renters and more mortgages. For more and more it is becoming true that the farmers do not own the farms. The city investor or speculator or the "retired farmer" is becoming the farm owner, and is therefore getting the benefit of the $15,000,000,000 increases in farm land value. And the farmer who is a tenant is helping pay the penalty. The report of the Thirteenth Census tells us, "It may be noted that at least since 1880 (and probably further back also) the farms operated by tenants have in each decade increased faster than those operated by owners "(Fig. 1). Number of Persons Engaged. There has been a gradual increase in the number of persons engaged in agriculture, manufacturing, professional service, domestic and personal service, and in transportation. But the proportion engaged in agriculture quite naturally shows a gradual decline. In 1870, 48 per cent of the workers were in agriculture; in 1910, only 33 per cent. There are approximately six million farms in the United States, and allowing to each farm a family of five persons, we have thirty million of our population living in the open country. There remain therefore over seventy million who are living in cities and villages. The significance of these figures is important from the standpoint of an agrarian party or an agrarian policy in the United States. Any such a party with a policy of increasing agricultural profits at the expense of the consumer would be in a very hopeless minority. However, any organization of farmers, along economic lines, with a policy of "savings, not profits," or "stabilizing of profits," would not collide with the self interests of the majority. Capital Invested. - Mention has already been made of the capital invested in agriculture and manufacturing, but not of the difficulty of interpreting the word capital as applied to agriculture. The census figures for 1910 show total farm property, for instance, of forty billion dollars. But of this forty, twenty-eight is land value. And of this twenty-eight billions, fifteen billions is increase in land values since 1900, and represents no additional investment of capital. In 1910 some twelve billions of dollars represented the value of farm buildings, implements and machinery, and domestic animals, poultry, and bees. While land value increased in ten years 118 per cent, these buildings, implements, animals, etc., increased in value but 71 per cent (Fig. 2). In manufacturing, however, in 1910, there was a capital investment of eighteen billion dollars an increase over 1900 of 105 per cent. In banking in 1910 (in commercial banks only), there was invested capital to the amount of three billion dollars -a gain in ten years of 114 per cent. In transportation in 1910 (counting steam railroads alone) the capitalization was seventeen billion dollars, an increase in ten years of 42 per cent. Value of Product. - We cannot of course compare the value of the products of all the great industries since these values are not a matter of record except in the cases of agriculture and manufacturing. Here, however, since 1870, the value of the product of manufacturing has been more than twice the value of the product of agriculture. According to the classification of the 1910 census, the values stood as follows: agriculture, eight billion dollars; manufacturing, twenty billions (Fig. 3). A study of the census figures shows that America, like some European countries, is now primarily a manufacturing country. Value of Exports. In time past our chief exports were foodstuffs. This has now changed. Thus in 1880 exports of foodstuffs were four times the amount of manufactures exported. In 1912, however, exports of manufactures were two and a half times as large as exports of foodstuffs. In other words, exports of foodstuffs remained at about four hundred million of dollars, while exports of manufactures grew from a hundred and twenty millions to over a billion dollars. However, agriculture has many exportable products which are not foodstuffs, chiefly cotton (Fig. 4). Yet even counting the total products of agriculture, over half of our exports are now of other products than those of agriculture. In 1913, for instance, our exports amounted to a total of $2,465,884,150; of this amount FIG. 4. Cotton production and farm value of cotton. the products of agriculture represent but $1,123,651,985, or 45 per cent. Whereas agricultural exports remain about the same from year to year, or increase very slightly, the imports of agri |