Excerpts from the report Foreword: Agriculture in the United States has progressed from an economy of scarcity to an economy of abundance in the space of a hundred years. This profound change may be measured in a number of ways. For example, less than 9 percent of our labor force is engaged in agriculture today, as compared with 20 to 40 percent in much of Western Europe, over 45 percent in the Soviet Union, and 70 to 80 percent in some parts of the world. Agriculture has contributed labor and capital to the other parts of the American economy, and has been a major force in our economic growth. Three laws adopted by this Nation in 1862—the act creating the Department of Agriculture, the Homestead Act, and the Morrill Land Grant College Act—have helped the American farmer make invaluable contributions to our agricultural productivity. Illustrations of contributions by the Department of Agriculture appear in After A Hundred Years: The Yearbook of Agriculture 1962. Other examples appear in this volume. However, the basic purpose of this history is to outline the Department's organizational development and its response to changing conditions—national and international, scientific and economic.