T^ I oHE 1,061 million acres in farms in the United States in 1940 are equal in area to nearly nine times the agricultural holdings of France, 17 times those of 1937 Germany, 21 times those of Sweden, 24 times those of New Zealand, 26 times those of England, Wales, and Scotland, and 71 times those of Eire or of Scotland taken by itself. The 530 million acres of plowable land in farms of the United States is six times the corresponding figure for France, 11 times that of Germany, nearly 12 times that of Poland, 15 times that of Rumania, 55 times that of England and Wales, 57 times that of Sweden, and 96 times that of Finland. Again in total area in farms the United States has added each year on the average, from 1850 to 1940, onetenth the area in farms in 1937 Germany. Nearly nine times the area of pre-war Germany has been added to the American farm area in 90 years. The south-flowing Mississippi River has witnessed the rise of a series of agricultural empires to the east and to the west of it. The size of these domains in respect to total land area, all land in farms, and plowable land area can be gauged by comparing them with various individual countries, mostly European (Table I and Figure 1). The total area west of the Mississippi, 1,356 million acres, is larger than the area of Europe west of Russia. The total area east of the Mississippi is about two-fifths as large as the area west, which is 549 million acres. In 1940 the 731 million acres in farms west of the Mississippi was 58 per cent of the total area west; and the farming area east of the Mississippi, 330 million acres, was 60 per cent of the total area east. Of the 1,905 million acres in the mainland of the United States in 1935, about 1,061 million acres were in farms. The growth of farm holdings in the East and West in the United States has been measured by the census at tenyear intervals from 1850 to 1920, and at five-year intervals from 1920 to 1940. How has East compared with West in ninety-year growth? How have later phases of the growth, such as from 1920 to 1940, differed as between East and West? Let us trace the changes between 1850 and 1940 in terms of farms, of acres, and of values, thus viewing the same real estate from three different angles. An average ten-year interval between 1850 and 1940 sufficed to see marked shifts in the proportion of farm properties from east to west of the Mississippi (Figure 1). Counting as 1,000 the national total at each decemial census, the comparative amount of the shifting was as follows: