262 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



during the eighties, our animal population not only failed to make 

 any further increase but began to fall off, so that we began the new 

 century with but few more animals on our Ohio farms than we had 

 at the middle of the century previous, while our area in cereal crops 

 had increased to more than eight million acres, giving four acres in 

 cereals for every cattle beast kept. 



About the middle of this period we began the use of commercial 

 fertilizers. At the beginning of the eighties we were expending 

 three or four hundred thousand dollars a year for commercial fer- 

 tilizers, but during the last twenty-five years this expenditure has 

 steadily increased until it has reached a total amount for the whole 

 period of twenty-eight million dollars, an average of over a million 

 dollars a year, and now amounting to more than two million dollars 

 annually. 



In 1850, and for twenty years following, our corn yield was a 

 little over 35 bushels per acre; during the eighties it fell to 34^ 

 bushels, and during the nineties to 30 7-10 bushels, but it rose again 

 to 85 3-10 bushels for the final ten-year period. Our corn yield for 

 the entire State stands at the end of the century practically where 

 it stood at the middle. In some portions it has materially fallen 

 off, in other portions it has increased.The tendency, however, on 

 our older lands is toward a steady and marked decrease in the yield 

 of corn in Ohio, as will be shown further on. 



Our wheat yields began the period with an average of 13 V2 

 bushels, falling within the next twenty years to considerably below 

 that point, rising again with the use of fertilizers to 14 bushels, and 

 standing practically the same from that time forward — that is, for 

 the twenty-five years past. Notwithstanding the expenditure for 

 fertilizers, the bulk of which were used on the wheat crop, we have 

 only maintained our wheat at the level at which it stood when these 

 fertilizers came into use. 



For your own State, I have compiled statistics as far back as I 

 can get them. I have used for your crop yields the estimates of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, which are less accurate 

 than those in Ohio, collected by the township assessors, and for 

 crop areas and live stock numbers I have used the National Census 

 statistics. It is not pretended that any of these statistics are abso- 

 lutely correct, but they can be used for relative comparisons, for 

 the comparison of one district with another and one period with 

 another. The Missouri statistics are shown in chart II.* 



*The live stock statistics for 18S0, 1890 and 1000, shown on Charts I and II, have 

 been compiled for animals on farms, excluding stock under one year old, following 

 the estimates of the Twelfth Census, Vol. V, page CLXIII. 



