armer to plant and harvest his crops with the
minimum of expense and time.

Hand-work in harvesting and planting has almost wholly given way to
machine-work. Farming carried on under such conditions requires not only
a considerable capital, but close business management as well. Some of
the results have been very far-reaching. The machinery and other
equipments require capital, and this in late years has been borrowed
from Eastern capitalists. The prompt business methods of the
money-lender brought about no little friction, and it is only within
recent years that each adjusted himself to the requirements of the
other.

The system of machine-farming to a great extent has prevented the
subdivision of farms. As a rule, quarter and half sections represent the
size of most of the farms, but tracts varying from five thousand to ten
thousand acres are by no means uncommon. The chief drawback to this
method in the case of wheat-farming, however, is the low yield per acre.
The average yield per acre for the United States, a little more than
twelve bushels, is scarcely half the average yield in Europe. Although
the farmer has done much to reorganize his business methods, he has done
but little to maintain the productivity of his land.

[Illustration: THE WHEAT INDUSTRY--HARVESTING WITH McCORMICK
SELF-BINDING REAPERS]

The cities and towns of this region are mainly receiving and collecting
points for farm produce. Nearly every village is equipped with elevators
and grain-handling machinery; the larger towns, as a rule, have
stock-yards and the necessary facilities for cattle shipment; the large
cities are usually centres of meat-packing. Most of the meat-packing is
a necessity; for although cattle may be shipped alive and beef may be
transported in refrigerator ships and cars, pork is not marketable
unless pickled, salted, or smoked. The pork thus exported, aggregating
about six hundred million pounds yearly, must be prepared, therefore,
somewhere near the cornfields. Manufacturing enterprises are operated on
a very large scale, but in the main their products are farm-machinery
and the commodities required by a farming population.

Education in agriculture is provided for in nearly every State in the
Union. The agricultural colleges in the States composing this group rank
among the best in the world. In addition to the ordinary courses in such
institutions, there are also many experiment stations for the study of
economic pl