PAPERS OX GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY 221 



vears after settlement, the average yield per acre was 

 21.08 bushels in Goodhue, 18.02 " in 'Fillmore, 19.64 in 

 Olmsted, 18.06 in Wabasha, 17.55 in "Winona, and 17.34 

 in Houston Comity 1 ". After 1880, however, the average 



yield rapidly decreased. While statu vail- 



able to show which type of soil maintained high yields 

 for. the longest time, there is little doubt that the yield 

 on the loess soils was satisfactoiy for some years after 

 other soils were exhausted. 



The scarcity of labor which prevailed in these early 

 years somewhat retarded the increase of wheat acre- 

 ages. Land was so cheap that nearly every man owned 

 or hoped to own a farm rather than to work for some one 

 else. Other parts of the West were developing at the 

 same time, and the immigration of laborers into any one 

 area seldom equalled the demand for them. As a result 

 of this labor shortage and the profits in wheat farm- 

 ing, labor-saving farm machinery was adopted rapidly. 

 Sulky plows, disk harrows, seeders, reapers, binders, 

 threshing machines, fanning mills and other machines 

 found a ready sale when they were put on the market. 

 In southeastern Minnesota the use of farm machinery 

 was favored by the nearly leYel surface and the fine text- 

 ured, well-drained loess and weathered drift soils of 

 the upland prairies. Moreover the shortage of labor 

 during harvest, when it was most acute, was solved, in 

 part at least, by the importation of gangs of men who 

 had previously worked in the wheat fields in states to 

 the south. The extension of the wheat growing area 

 northward simply prolonged the working period of these 

 men and brought them near the Minnesota and Wis- 

 consin forests where many of them were employed in 

 the winter. 



The use of this machinery and the adoption of this 

 harvesting practice so increased the acreage of wheat 

 on many farms that the profits earned enabled many men 

 to increase the size of their farms. Consequently hold- 

 ings of from 300 to 1,000 or more acr uncom- 

 mon. The profits were so great in many instances that 



nnual Report of Commissioner of Statistics for Minnesota (St. 

 Paul, 1ST7), p. 36. 



