548 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE, 
nently popular crops. In the older areas there is a decided prejudico , 
toward it on account of injury to fertility of the soil, but new settlers ~ 
in the West and Northwest, with their deep rich soils, canand do 
disregard this objection. Sart 
‘It is undoubtedly true that flax does very rapidly withdraw certain 
constituent elements from the soil, the presence of which is necessary 
to its successful production, but the same may be said of other crops 
which arealwaysinfavor. Were it desired American farmers could 
easily devise means to renew the elements withdrawn, so a further 
reason for its comparative abandonment in the older sections must 
be sought. Under present conditions it is not a paying crop, except 
on the fertile virgin soils of portions of the trans-Mississippi btates. 
This is variously accounted for by correspondents, but the main 
cause is undoubtedly the fact that there is no general demand for 
anything except the seed, the straw and the fiber going almost en- 
tirely to waste on account of lack of facilities for its utilization. In’ 
a few localities in the more eastern States the fiber is used in rough 
bagging and rope making, and there are a few establishments where 
itis converted into tow for upholstering; many correspondents 
in Minnesota, Iowa, and Kansas speak of the straw as being fed to 
cattle to a considerable extent as a substitute for straw and corn fod- 
der, and others of its use as a material for thatching houses and cat- 
tle shelters, but as a general rule the straw and fiber together are 
burned or returned to the soil as a dressing. In primitive days, be- 
fore the development of our cotton and wool-manufacturing indus- 
tries and transportation facilities, the hackel and brake and the 
spinning-wheel and hand-loom were implements aimost as necessary 
to the farmer as the plow and flail. 
The present investigation, relating mainly to seed, shows that the 
crop of 1887, while considerably smaller than that of the previous 
year, is somewhat larger than that of 1879. Its production is con- 
fined to that great belt of States lying north of the thirty-seventh 
parallel and west of Ohio. The ten principal States of this region in 
1879 produced 97 per cent. of the total seed grown, and the propor- 
tion remains about the same, though the center of production has 
shifted to the extreme western limit of the belt. Thefollowing state- 
ment shows the production of seed in 1879, according to the returns 
of the Tenth Census, and in comparison the estimated production of 
1887, asascertained by this investigation: 
States. 1879. 1887. | States. 1879. 1887. 
| | | 
Bushels. Bushels. | Bushels. | Bushels. 
QONIO sh AAS oe aroney se 593, 217 | TIS (G43 5 MIRANSSSP coehe ne G. nas =i. 513,616 } 1,068,321! 
Ariana Roth eens | 1,419,172 | 113,534 || Nebraska aah te 77, 805 | 665, 233 
MWLnois seks ee es | 1,812,438 | 94,247 || Dakota 26,787 | 3,237,597 
WuisGonsin’ coe ec ee |. 547,104 | 65;1652))|| Aulvother® sees. sense | 191, 487 | 142, 258 
MATMESOtA; tease helo 98,689 | 1,246, 442 | |_—______'_—__—_ 
TOWA Eset Oe thas teeeees | 1,511,131 | 1,888.914 Totals s-.c- me eo of 7,170,951 | 9,001,399 
MISGOULI:2). 02.6 eek oo 379,535 | . "360,558 | 
} i] 
The most remarkable feature of this table is the marked falling off 
of the crop of the more Eastern States and the still more extraordi- 
nary increase in the Western belt. In 1879 the four States east of 
the Mississippi River produced 63 per cent. of the total of the States 
named, while in the present year the same region grows but little 
more than 4 per cent. of the whole, the six trans-Mississippi States 
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