GEOGRAPHICAL CONCENTRATION. 9 



produced in New York. Ten years more and the same two 

 states, so utterly dissimilar both in their physical conditions 

 and their methods of cultivation, were producing 54.49 per 

 cent of the total, a proportion, however, that was reduced to 

 46.04 per cent during the decade ending with 1879. Among 

 the many remarkable changes disclosed by the census of 

 1890 is the very large increase in the cultivation of barley, 

 the increase in acreage between 1879 and 1889 amounting to 

 6 1 23 per cent and the increase in production to 78.04 per 

 cent. Still, two states were producing 41.84 per cent and 

 two others 28.73 P er cent of the total crop of the country, 

 New York producing over sixteen times as much as the 

 adjoining state of Pennsylvania, of almost equal area and 

 with very similar agricultural conditions. 



There are few agricultural products that more readily ac- 

 commodate themselves to varying conditions of spil and cli- 

 mate than does tobacco. In India it is grown in almost 

 every district, while in Europe its cultivation extends from 

 Sicily to Sweden. In 1839 its production in the United 

 States was contributed to by every state and territory, and 

 in 1889 there were but six out of the greatly increased num- 

 ber of political divisions that did not make some contribution 

 to the tobacco crop of the country. Nevertheless 53.76 per 

 cent of the crop of 1839 and 55.38 per cent of the crop of 

 1889 (the latter reaching the large total of 488,256,646 

 pounds) were produced in the states of Kentucky and Vir- 

 ginia. While the production of the four leading tobacco- 

 growing states has fallen from 83.57 per cent of the total in 

 1839 to 70.58 per cent of the total in 1889, the proportion 

 borne by the crop of Kentucky has gradually increased from 

 24.90 per cent in 1859 to 45.44 per cent in 1889. 



The cultivation of flax is one of the curiosities of American 

 agriculture. It has passed through extraordinary vicissitudes, 



