others by producing nearly 74 million bushels, 

 which up to that time was the greatest yield 

 ever credited to any state. The year before she 

 was second in rank. While among the highest, 

 since then her position has fluctuated somewhat 

 until 1900, when as a reward by kindly Provi- 

 dence of industry and thrift, she again easily as- 

 cended to first place, which rank was more fully 

 than ever before maintained in 1901. 



The State's 1901 production is 82 per cent, 

 greater than the average yearly output in the 

 past decade. The 1901 yield is more by 11,915,183 

 bushels, or 15.2 per cent- than the United 

 States Department of Agriculture has ever re- 

 ported raised by any state in any year, barring 

 the Kansas yield in 1900, which according to the 

 same authority, had for the preceding year the 

 distinction of being the bulkiest, but only until 

 Kansas had another season, when she of all 

 the states surpassed her own record and pro- 

 duced a still greater crop. Nearly 13 per cent, of 

 the 1901 yield was in Sumner and Barton coun- 

 ties ; Sumner with 6,812,102 bushels to her credit. 

 Barton with 4,830,009. These two counties in 

 1901 produced more wheat than was grown the 

 year before. according to the government'sfigures, 

 in all New England and the states of New Jersey, 

 Delaware, Alabama, Arkansas, Montana and 

 South Carolina combined. The four counties of 

 Sumner, Barton, Rice and iVlcPherson in 1901 

 produced more wheat than the entire states of 

 either Illinois or Missouri in the year previous. 



It is difficult for anyone who has not been in 

 touch with, or directly observant from year tO' 

 year of the progress and expansion of our wheat- 

 growing from its small beginnings forty years 

 ago, to comprehend how it is that the state has 

 gradually come to occupy the foremost rank, and 

 how in a quarter of a century what were known 

 as soft wheats have in nine-tenths of the fields 

 been displaced by the red, flinty sorts, introduced 

 from Russia, yet in every-day parlance grouped 

 under the general head of " Turkey " wheat. 



Forty years ago the Kansas area sown to 

 wheat of all kinds, winter and spring, hard, 



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