224 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



became the great grain shipping port of 

 the country. 



The report, .which is quite compre- 

 hensive, contains a series of tables dealing 

 with the rise and development of the 

 grain trade at various collecting and 

 distributing points, the efforts of the 

 several railroads to control and effect the 

 ever increasirg. transportation of grain and 

 the distribution of the traffic among the 

 various routes. A great amount of infor- 

 mation is furnished about rail, canal, and 

 ocean freight rates ; about the production, 

 distribution, and consumption of cereals, 

 andj^a special paragraph is devoted to the 

 subject of the foreign market for Ameri- 

 can grain. The monograph includes a 

 number of tables regarding acreage, pro- 

 duction, imports, exports, consumption, 

 prices and rates of duty for wheat in all 

 the principal countries of the earth, as 

 well as a map showing in general outline 

 the present wheat area of the world'. 



The statistics contained in this report 

 throw light upon the present grain and 

 more especially wheat situation of the 

 United States. They show that the 

 exportation of grain is increasing with 

 great rapidity, that both the production 

 and exportation of corn are assuming a 

 greater volume and that a constantly 

 growing portion of our wheat is exported 

 in the form of flour. During the last 

 thirty-two years the amount of corn pro- 

 duced has increased from 868 to 1,924 

 millions of bushels, an increase of 122 per 

 cent., while the exports of this cereal 

 increased from 16 to 177 millions of 

 bushels, or over 1,000 per cent. During 

 the same period our production of wheat 

 increased from 152 to 675 millions of 

 bushels, a gain of 344 per cent., while our 

 exports increased from 12.6 to 222.6 

 millions of bushels, or almost 18 fold and 

 our net exports of this grain increased at 

 a still more rapid rate. 



