14 GEOGRAPHICAL CONCENTRATION. 



last few years, gone on increasing, little by little, their pro- 

 duction of the principal cereals, as the total area of their 

 land in farms and likewise that of their improved land have 

 slowly increased, every year has witnessed a greater diversifi- 

 cation of their agricultural industry, so that even their in- 

 creasing production of grain has constituted a decreasing 

 proportion of their entire farming operations. In course of 

 time, however, even this limited increase, insufficient to keep 

 pace with the growth of population, has come to an end, and 

 the Eleventh Census finds a more or less considerable de- 

 crease in the total acreage devoted to the cultivation of 

 cereals, not merely in the New England states, where it ex- 

 cites but little surprise, but also in New York, New Jersey, 

 Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois. Nor is this wholly the re- 

 sult of that curtailment of the area under wheat to which 

 reference will presently be made. Even in Illinois, long the 

 greatest cereal-producing state in the Union, oats are the 

 only cereal not showing a reduction in acreage, while the 

 curtailment of the area under corn amounts to no less than 

 1,156,256 acres. 



It may, of course, be contended that these are but tempo- 

 rary fluctuations, at least in such a state as Illinois, and every 

 one knows that let the agriculture of a country be ever so 

 stable it cannot but be affected by the rise and fall of prices, 

 by a succession of unfavorable seasons, or by the ravages of 

 disease or insect enemies. But when there is already a 

 marked tendency toward a system of farming which, though 

 it may occasionally diminish the profits, can always be de- 

 pended upon to lessen the risks a consideration of no small 

 moment in such an industry as agriculture any especially 

 adverse conditions that may arise will only serve to give it 

 additional force. 



Moreover, this tendency is by no means confined to the 



