Changes in Farm Size and Structure in American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century

The dawn of the twentieth century heralded great change in American agriculture. Homesteaders had staked their claims to most of the productive land in the West. Mechanization had begun to save labor in a range of applications. Animal and human power, which had felled the forests, broken the prairie sod, and established farming across the continent, was to be aided and then replaced in large measure by mechanical power and the magic of electricity.