creasing and that the application of more power per acre was an indication of a change to intensive farming, but at the same time the farmer seems to have been endeavoring to make up for the extra cost of better farming by farming larger areas."

From the previous discussion we may infer that the net income of the farmer was diminishing, since the cultivation of less land by each horse meant more draft animals per farm or else the decrease in the size of the farm. Since the size of the average farm was increasing, the decrease in the ratio meant a still greater increase in the number of horses, and since the increase in the number of horses meant more stable room, feed, and draft equipment, which meant an increase in the depreciation of equipment due to wear and tear, and since in addition to the above this increase in stock meant an increase in the amount of land sown to feed for this increased power, we can safely say that in the second half of the period under consideration the net profits of the farm were diminishing, and it is the gradual realization of this fact that led the farmer to give ear to the theories of agitators in order that he might increase his net returns so as to approximate those of the earlier extensive period. This agitation was listened to in spite of the fact that the price of wheat had been gradually rising and was supposed to have compensated the farmer for his increased investment in the article he produced. When we consider, however, the average income per horse in the value of the wheat it produces, we

Quoting Dr. Coulter, who has made an intensive study of the Red River Valley section: "The movement towards extensive cultivation seems to have reached the maximum in 1900. The area cultivated to wheat in proportion to the improved land area has already commenced to decline and in the rotation of crops we find that bare summer fallowing holds a very prominent place. This is being reduced by the introduction of more livestock which in turn calls for more pasture, more hayland, timothy, clover, millet,-more corn both for fodder and the grain and more barley. With the cattle come more barns, dairy equipment and groves of trees. . . . A reorganized, diversified system of agriculture is making rapid inroads in the valley of number one hard wheat" (J. L. Coulter, The Industrial History of the Red River Valley, in North Dakota Historical Collections, vol. iii, pp. 666-667).

find that that income in the second half of the period has a downward trend, and this fact, taken into consideration with the upward trend of the prices of farm equipment, would greatly reduce this income. Therefore, the farmer who had increased his investment both in power and in land found that his net income had not only not increased in proportion to his investment but in some years had shrunk to the vanishing point. From the preceding we might therefore conclude that though the agrarian discontent, increasing in intensity with the rise in the price of the agriculturist's chief product, might, at first glance, appear to be paradoxical, yet on closer examination this phenomenon appears to be directly connected with the decrease in the volume of his profits. We must not imply from the above that wheat farming had in any way lost its importance as the chief occupation of the State, but nevertheless wheat, which is the chief money crop of the farm, was decreasing in acreage,

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8

Farming today is a matter of power. It has appeared, therefore, more appropriate in the calculations shown in Plates I, II, V and VI to use the horse as a unit rather than man. The number of acres a man can take care of during a season has increased very greatly during the last half century due to the use of labor-saving farm machinery. This machinery requires power for its operation and since the amount of work a horse can do is comparatively constant (a horse under load is not driven much over twenty miles a day) and the labor saving machinery has only increased the number of horses one man can control, the acreage worked by one horse, it appears, would indicate fairly well the intensity of cultivation. When we use the income per unit of power as an index of the income of the farmer, it seems that it is possible to arrive at a closer approximation of the condition of the farmer than if we use per capita production, at least in the small grain districts where power is the true source of income. If we take the five year average wheat income per horse, the downward trend becomes more apparent. A feature of this plate worth noticing is the fact that the beginning of each agrarian agitation is approximately marked by a trough in the graph. We have plotted the five-year average shown in Plate V in the terminal year because the farmer's activities seemed to be based on crop conditions and prices over such a period. He seems to be continually forecasting over a base of about that length. The mortgage period of five years seems to tend to either encourage such habits or to be a direct result of them. In questioning farmers concerning previous crops their knowledge of both yield and price, as far back as five years, is surprisingly accurate. See also on this point, Bulletin 1224, U. S. Dept. Agriculture.