REPORT OF THE STATISTICIAN. 281 



CONCLUSION. 



There are many iuvestigations the results of which might appear here 

 were the resources of the Division adequate to the supply of necessary 

 data. Neither is the clerical force sufficient for the requisite office 

 work. 



Among these is one relative to the statistics of fr ait-growing, the area 

 in different species, the rate of yield and price obtained, preferred varie- 

 ties in different parts of the country, and other important facts very 

 little known. An immense collection of facts and estimates has been 

 received, condensed, and tabulated, but there are gaps to be filled and 

 statements to verify, and scarcely anything in the national census, and 

 with slight exceptions in State enumerations, with which to make 

 comparison. Believing that approximate correctness should be reached, 

 before publication, it is withheld for farther elaboration and extension. 



There is also an important work commenl^d designed to show the" 

 diversity of systems and crops in the several States, the proportionate 

 area in each, and rate of production and comparative profit. We are 

 already able to present a fair idea of the relative ai-ea in a few principal 

 crops, but it is exceedingly difficult to obtain accurate information of 

 the minor crops, so various in kind and so fluctuating in area cultivated 

 and quantity produced, and of which there is scarcely an attempt at 

 complete enume^-ation in a single State. Of course there must be some 

 latitude in estimating what is never fully reported in any country, but 

 the difiiculties in this country are peculiar, from the breadth of our do- 

 main, the wide range of latitude and elevation, and consequent variety 

 of production, including everything grown in temperate and subtropical 

 climates. In the next volume something in this direction will probably 

 be presented. 



Another point of inquiry has been the changes in kind and volume of 

 production, caused by westward emigration, settlements of virgin tracts 

 of territory, depreciation of rate of yield by irrational modes of culture, 

 and the varying measure of foreign demand for food products. The 

 movement of population westward across the continent has been one of the 

 wonders of modern times. A single illustration will attest the industrial 

 importanceof thishegira. Notonly is the volume of wheatof to-day more 

 than threefold greater than twenty-eight years ago, but the increase of 

 that portion of it grown beyond the Mississippi is greater than the entire 

 crop of 1849, Five per cent, only was then produced west of the Missis- 

 sippi; and in 1870, a year of comparative failure in the Northwest, it was 

 40 per cent. Dividing the country into three sections, the first including 

 the Atlantic coast States, with Pennsylvania, and the Virginias to the 

 Ohio Eiver, and the second and third section separated by the Missis- 

 sippi liiver, we find more than half of the wheat grown in the first in 

 1849, the percentages of each section changing rapidly, as follows : 



The first section has now a little more than one-third of its former 

 proportion ; even the second, which was swept with so heavy a wave of 

 immigration in the first decennial period, exhibits a declining percentage, 



