Much land is barely scratched instead of being ploughed deep; millions of acres bear no cover crops but lose their fertility through the leaching of valuable constituents during the winter.

Fertilizer is bought at exorbitant prices, while the richness of the barnyard goes to waste, and legumes are neglected; land is allowed to wash into gullies which soon become ravines.

Farms which would produce excellent corn and hay are supplied with these products from the Middle West; millions of pounds of Western pork are consumed in regions where hogs can be easily and cheaply raised; butter from Illinois or Wisconsin is brought to sections admirably adapted to dairying; and apples from Oregon and honey from Ohio are sold in the towns.

In several typical counties an average of $4,000,000 was sent abroad for products which could easily have been raised at home.

In Texas some of the bankers have been refusing credit to supply merchants who do not encourage the production of food crops as well as cotton.[1] [Footnote 1: An illuminating series of studies of rural life is being issued by the Bureau of Extension of the University of North Carolina.] Throughout the South there are thousands of homes into which no newspaper comes, certainly no agricultural paper, and in which there are few books, except perhaps school books.