GEOGRAPHICAL CONCENTRATION. 7 



tributions to the total. At no census, however, has less than 

 45.41 per cent had to be credited to what were for the time 

 being the four leading oat-producing states. Between 1879 

 and 1889 the production of oats almost doubled and the en- 

 ormous increase in the acreage was more generally distri- 

 buted over the country at large than was the increase in the 

 acreage devoted to any other important product, even the 

 southern states having a net increase amounting to 705,869 

 acres. Nevertheless the percentage of the total crop of the 

 country grown in the four states of largest production was 

 even greater in 1889 than in 1879. 



Rye has never been a favorite crop in the United States, 

 and there have been times when its cultivation has shown a 

 marked decline. In fact, its production increased only 52.43 

 per cent during the fifty years, 1840 to 1890, in which popu- 

 lation increased 266.87 per cent. It is no wonder, therefore, 

 that, notwithstanding its hardiness as a plant, its cultivation 

 is very unequally distributed, even within the climatic range 

 to which it normally belongs. The interesting fact, how- 

 ever, remains that whatever may have been the fluctuations 

 of its production, a considerable proportion of the total crop 

 of the country has always been contributed by some two or 

 three states. In 1839, 1849, 1859, and 1869 the states of 

 New York and Pennsylvania produced 51.45, 63.10, 48.63, 

 and 35.79 per cent of the total crops of those years. In 

 1879 Illinois had displaced New York, and two other western 

 states, Wisconsin and Iowa, were coming into prominence as 

 rye-producing states. Still there was no less marked a con- 

 centration of the area of production, the two leading states 

 producing 34.31 per cent and the three next in rank 32.53 

 per cent, of 'the total crop. The census of 1890 disclosed 

 some tendency toward decentralization in the cultivation of 

 this product. But while Wisconsin stood at the head of the 



