570 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Acreage and Pnxiuct, 1000. 



83,820,872 



B.ishels. 



;, 103, 102, 516 



Potatoes. 



Hay. 



39,132.890 



25,521,000 



5o,iio,9'i6 



E itc:a Estimated. 

 10,000,000 



The area of the United States (omitting Alaska), a little less than 3,000,- 

 000 square miles, is represented by the outer square. The proportion of land 

 cultivated in all the principal crops that count for much in acreage is indicated 

 by the smaller areas computed on the same scale. The total area in the above 

 crops in the year 1900 numbered 353,275 square miles, or about twelve per 

 cent, of the total area. 



JwLY, 1900. Computed by Edward Atkinson, Boston, Mass. 



The proportion of land in the twelve Mississippi Valley States 

 listed which is devoted to wheat is five and a half per cent, of their land 

 area. 



The change which has come over this section can be put before the 

 imagination in no better way than for the writer to state that 

 he himself witnessed and clearly remembers the war dance of the 

 Blackhawk Indians on Boston Common, when the chiefs were sent 

 around the country by the Government after they had been subdued 

 in the last great Indian war, which occurred in central Illinois, at the 

 very heart of the section with which we are dealing, and very near the 

 present center of population of the country. 



The question arises: What is the basis or fundamental principle 

 underlying the change from occupation by the wild or Tjlankef 



