1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 313 



patches, large or small, the crops which furnish the products 

 of American agriculture. The great cereal crop of the coun- 

 try, Indian corn, which is only exceeded by grass in the 

 universality of distribution, constitutes more than one thou- 

 sand seven hundred of the two thousand million bushels of 

 grain of 1879. It is found in every State and in every 

 Territory, with one or two exceptions. Yet this crop cannot 

 escape the law of special local attraction. The three States, 

 Illinois, Iowa and Missouri, yield eight hundred million 

 bushels, or forty-five per cent of the crop ; and only seven 

 States, including Indiana and Ohio on the east, and Kansas 

 and Nebraska on the west, have ever any considerable sur- 

 plus above the requirements of home consumption. The re- 

 maining thirty-one States and all the Territories produce but 

 thirty-seven per cent of the crop, at a rate of only nineteen 

 bushels per acre, — but half the rate of the yield of the corn 

 belt. The receipts at the sea-board cities for exportation 

 and consumption, including all kinds of grain, ground and 

 unground, aggregated 352,921,452 bushels in 1879, and 

 369,559,607 bushels in 1880. The whole Eastern move- 

 ment of Western grain, including shipments to interior 

 points on the Atlantic slope, must somewhat exceed four 

 hundred million bushels, — not more than one-sixth of the 

 total production of an abundant year, and less than one- 

 fourth of the lightest crop the most disastrous season is likely 

 to yield. The relations which are thus established between 

 the interests of our country not only afiect the material pros- 

 perity of the farmer, but they provide him with that social 

 enjoyment upon which the happiness of an educated people 

 largely depends, and rouse him to that energetic action 

 which gives strength to all his powers. The isolation of 

 farm life incident to sparsely settled regions is one of the 

 trials which the American is anxious to avoid ; and when he 

 leaves the outlying farm and secures a home nearer the 

 haunts of men, he places himself within reach of the lyceum 

 and the library, and easy and convenient intercourse with 

 his fellowmen. The comforts and adornments of his home 

 are increased ; and farming becomes to him an occupation 

 analogous to those branches of business which tempt men 

 away from the loneliness of the country to the pleasures and 



