INDUSTRIES OF THE WEST 3^5 



clearly, I think, that the maximum capacity, under present 

 methods of agriculture, has been nearly attained. 



In 1889, forty per cent of the arable land of Iowa (the 

 proportion actually cropped) produced one pound of cereals 

 per day for every man, woman, and child in the United States 

 — in round numbers eleven million tons. This would be quite 

 enough to sustain life, and more than the average ration en- 

 joyed by the people of the world. If all the arable land of 

 Iowa were put in crop, and that portion not needed to sup- 

 port the teams necessary for its cultivation placed on the 

 market, the people of the United States could not consume it 

 though restricted to a cereal diet. The only way the yield 

 of this unequaled fifty six thousand square miles of land can 

 be consumed by eighty million people is to have large quanti- 

 ties of it first manufactured into beef and pork and dairy 

 butter. Our increasing population renders it improbable, 

 however, that this remarkable showing can be long continued, 

 even by Iowa, though she may increase to some extent her 

 cereal production. 



The west not only grows food products, but her people 

 have become no mean competitors in their preparation. 

 Minneapolis alone manufactures 16,000,000 barrels of flour 

 per annum, a carload (60,000 pounds) every ten minutes, 

 day and night, 365 days in the year. A branch factory in a 

 prairie town of Iowa of less than 4,000 population produces 

 6,000,000 cans of condensed milk per annum, while the parent 

 plant in Wisconsin makes more than double this amount, a 

 portion of which helps to feed the standing armies of Europe. 

 The Elgin Butter company consumes the cream from 70,000,- 

 000 pounds of milk, manufactures 3,000,000 pounds of butter 

 (1,500 tons), and exports its products to China, Japan, Cuba, 

 Mexico, South American countries, and to Alaska. A single 

 unincorporated firm in southwest Iowa handles in a year a 

 quarter million pounds (125 tons) of butter, and 3,000,000 

 pounds (more than 100 carloads) of poultry. Another firm 

 in the same state marketed, in a single year, 1,500,000 dozen 

 eggs, sending them to the Atlantic, the gulf, and the Pacific 

 coasts, while a third firm ships dressed poultry, not by car- 

 load only, but by trainload. 



