The yield of farms in the United States during the last forty years does
not show a decreased average, but it must be remembered that in this
period there have been brought under cultivation new and virgin acres,
which have in their bountiful yield kept up the general average. One
authority says that, taking the country by regions and by districts and
considering what has actually happened, he is led to the conclusion that
the fertility of the soil for 50 per cent of our country has been
lessened. [Footnote: Van Hise, p. 299.]
The significance of these facts lies in the desire of the people to know
the truth and seek a remedy.
In a sense the public domain has been exhausted. The pick of the land has
been pre-empted, occupied. But if it is to grow with all its crops, and to
put forth with all its products such a public spirit as this, France will
have given to America a treasure infinitely more valuable than the land
itself which her explorers gave to Europe and the world.
The beaver, which the French regarded as the first opulence of the valley,
remains only as a synonym for industry, one of the States being called the
"Beaver State," perhaps in memory of the beaver days but now in
characterization of the beaverlike activity of its people.
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