1860, the exports of wheat from this country increased from
four million bushels annually to one hundred and forty million bushels;
of corn, from three and one-third million bushels to one hundred and
seventy-five million bushels; of beef products, from twenty million
pounds to three hundred and seventy million pounds; of pork products,
from ninety-eight million pounds to seventeen hundred million pounds.
And not only do the grain and stock farmers find this outlet for their
surplus products, but we are beginning to ship abroad high-grade fruit
and first-class dairy products in considerable quantities. Low rates of
freight, modern methods of refrigeration, express freight trains, fast
freight steamers--the whole machinery of the commercial and financial
world are at the service of the new farmer. Science, also, has found a
world of work in ministering to the needs of agriculture, and in a
hundred different ways the new farmer finds helps that have sprung up
from the broadcast sowing of the hand of science.

But perhaps even more remarkable opportunities come to the new farmer in
those social agencies that tend to remove the isolation of the country;
that assist in educating the farmer broadly; that give farmers as a
class more influence in legislature and congress, and that, in fine,
make rural life more worth the living. The new farmer cannot be
explained until one is somewhat familiar with the character of these
rural social agencies. They have already been enumerated and classified
in a previous chapter; they will be more fully described in subsequent
chapters.

It must not be supposed that every successful farmer is necessarily a
supporter of all of these social agencies. He may be a prosperous farmer
just because he is good at the art of farming, or because he is a keen
business man. But more and more he is coming to see that these things
are opportunities that he cannot afford to disregard. Indeed, some of
these institutions are largely the creation of the new farmer himself.
He is using them as tools to fashion a better rural social structure.

But they also fashion him. They serve to explain him, in great part.
Competition inspires the farmer to his best efforts. The opportunity
offered by these new and growing advantages gives him the implements
wherewith to make his rightful niche in the social and industrial
system.

It would be erroneous to suppose that the new farmer is a _rara avis_.
He is not. The sp