Arizona | 227,739| 104,128| | 1.8 | 1.7 | Indian | | | | | | Territory | 3,062,193| | | 7.8 | | New Mexico | 326,873| 263,106| 166,201| 1.7 | 1.7 | Oklahoma | 5,511,994| 563,728| | 13.8 | 9.0 | +-----------+-----------+---------+-------+-------+------- Total |202,543,416|159,097,543|7,131,518| 9.6 | 9.5 | 3.56 -------------+-----------+-----------+---------+-------+-------+------- The new farms opened since 1850 are nearly equal in the aggregate to the land area of the original thirteen states. The new farms opened between 1890 and 1900 are more than the combined land areas of the states of Tennessee and West Virginia. North Dakota, with a little over 300,000 population, has more land by 1,500,000 acres under farms than has all New England with 5,600,000 people. The average number of improved acres per inhabitant more than doubled in the West between 1850 and 1890 and showed in 1900 a slight increase over 1890. In the older agricultural states it is steadily decreasing. Thus, in New England it fell from 4 acres in 1850 to 1.4 acres in 1900; New York from 4 to 2.1 in the same interval. The Ohio valley states have held up steadier. Ohio has decreased from 4.9 to 4.6, and Illinois from 5.9 to 5.7. Indiana has increased from 5.1 to 6.6. The West has 2,056,748 farms compared with 1,491,405 in 1890, and 119,510 in 1850. Texas, with 352,190, leads the Union, and Missouri, with 284,886, holds second place. Iowa has 37,000 more farms than all the New England states combined. While the West has not quite half the improved acreage of the country, it has 63 per cent of the unimproved acreage or 269,000,000 acres out of 426,400,000 acres. Farms average in size from 93.1 acres in Arkansas to 885.9 acres in Montana, 1,174.7 acres in Nevada, and 1,333 acres in Wyoming, where stock raising predominates and requires large ranges. The average for the West is 229.1 acres against 146.6 acres for the Union.