CHAPTER XVII. 

 PRODUCTION AND MOVEMENT OF WHEAT 



The United States Wheat Production. With the develop- 

 ment of any agricultural community, farming becomes more 

 diversified. This tendency is already manifesting itself in the 

 great wheat regions of the North Central States, not only in 

 the diversification of crops on the smaller farms, but in the 

 rotation of crops beginning to be practiced on the larger farms. 

 There is also a tendency for even the largest farms to become 

 divided into smaller holdings, and this will further increase 

 the growing of diversified crops. All this diversification will 

 tend to decrease the wheat acreage in the best wheat lands 

 of the West. With the development of our whole country, land 

 values are certain to rise. This is a factor of the greatest im- 

 portance, for it will make certain lands too valuable for the 

 production of wheat, while it will sufficiently raise the price of 

 other lands now lying idle so that their cultivation will be- 

 come profitable. Some wheat will be grown on many eastern 

 and southern farms which are not cultivated at present. With 

 the development of drought resistant varieties of wheat, the 

 wheat acreage in the semi-arid regions of western United 

 States will be increased. 



It is probable that all of these developments will result in 

 a reverse in the historic westward movement of the center of 

 wheat production, and that this center may begin to retrace its 

 course and proceed eastward, for it is probable that the de- 

 crease of western acreage by diversified farming, and the in- 

 crease of eastern and southern acreage resulting from the rais- 

 ing of wheat on lands formerly abandoned, will more than 

 counterbalance the increased acreage in the semi-arid regions. 

 On the whole, it has been concluded by some students of agri- 

 cultural statistics that the limit of wheat production in the 

 United States has approximately been reached. With the fu- 

 ture growth in population, and especially with the further 

 development of mining and other non-agricultural industries, 

 the home consumption of wheat in the West will be greatly 



