EEPOET OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. 25 



States has increased greatly. At the same time the frontier of com- 

 mercial corn production has advanced steadily northward in the 

 upper Mississippi Valley and Plains States. 



Farther south and west, especially in western Kansas, Oklahoma, 

 and the Panhandle of Texas, corn is being displaced to a considerable 

 extent by the grain sorghums because they more regularly produce 

 profitable crops. Approximately 4 million acres now are devoted 

 to these crops. One of these sorghums has been changed by sys- 

 tematic breeding into a standard variety which produces a much 

 larger yield of grain. Dwarf milo, a recent result of systematic 

 breeding for low stature, has a higher grain-yielding power under 

 adverse conditions than the tall variety. During the past four years 

 it has become the leading variety grown in Oklahoma, Texas, and 

 New Mexico. As the sorghum grains in large measure serve the 

 same purposes as corn, the economic soundness to the Nation of their 

 enlarged production is apparent. 



In the Sacramento Valley of California, where this department 

 has been investigating the possibility of rice culture, the acreage 

 devoted to that crop has increased during the past five years from 

 1,400 to 67,000. The farm value of the current crop approximates 

 $o,500,000. The increased production of wheat, oats, and other small 

 grains in the Southeastern and South Central States, which was 

 specially stimulated by the cotton-market crisis of 1914, tends to 

 stabilize the food supply. In several States the acreage planted to 

 these grains was enlarged by from 50 to 100 per cent. 



Adaptation studies of the hard red winter wheats, which formerly 

 were restricted to a limited part of the Central Plains region, have 

 shown that they can be grown throughout a much larger area. Dur- 

 ing the past four years they have become established extensively in 

 Montana and in the States of the Great Basin and the Pacific North- 

 west. In the States west of the Rocky Mountains they have largely 

 replaced the soft wheats. 



The area devoted to durum wheat has strikingly increased. This 

 crop now is well established in western North Dakota, South Dakota, 

 eastern Montana and Wyoming, and northeastern Colorado. As the 

 durum varieties are more resistant to rust than other types and re- 

 quire less rainfall, their introduction by the department has proved 

 to be of very great importance to the country. The durum produc- 



