PLANT ANALYSIS AS AN APPLIED SCIENCE 193 



tinues to be the leading productive industry of the country, 

 and cereal production the most prominent feature of this in- 

 dustry. . . . 



"The increase in grain production, since the previous cen- 

 sus enumeration, is in part due to the cultivation of new lands 

 in the West and in the Northwest, but more largely due to 

 gain in farming regions already occupied in 1870. The popu- 

 lar belief that the chief increase in production and the rapid 

 growth of the grain exports is due to the cropping of new and 

 cheap lands, is not sustained by the census enumeration. 

 The tables of production show that the most of the grain is 

 in regions some time in cultivation, and on lands ranging in 

 value from $30 per acre upwards. . . . 



"The actual production of 58.8 bushels per head of total 

 population shows that the United States must be a grain- 

 exporting country, notwithstanding the enormously large 

 consumption by its population. The grain and flour exports l 

 for the five years ending June 30, 1880, amount as follows: 



Wheat and corn 833,692,207 bushels 



Flour and corn meal 24,850,316 " 



Total value $892,788,117 



"The profitable cultivation 2 of cereals on a large scale is 

 more dependent upon climate than upon soil. Rocks of va- 

 rious geological ages underlie the different portions of the 

 chief grain-producing regions. The immediate influence of 

 the underlying rocks is, however, greater in the southern and 

 western portions of the United States than in the northern 

 and eastern." The production and distribution of grain in 

 the United States is influenced largely by the physical charac- 

 ter of the soil. "The portions producing the bulk of the grain 

 have soils of reasonable fertility, but are also those which 

 are easily tilled, and upon which the best machinery and labor- 

 saving appliances can be most readily used." 



"The acreage and crop 3 of wheat, in 1879, amounted to 

 35,430,052 acres, 459,579,505 bushels; the acreage being 29.7 



1 Cereal Report, p. 383. 2 Ibid., p. 396. 



3 Ibid., pp. 440-442. 



