A Graphic Swnmary of American Agriculture. 



85 



Fig. 102. — Improved land is a better criterion of the real size of a farm than its 

 total area. The Cotton Belt stands out clearly, with the farms in most of the area 

 averaging less than 40 acres. The same small acreage per farm is found in casti-ru 

 New England, where trucking and dairying dominate, and in the upper Lakes area, 

 where farms are only partially reclaimed from the forest. At tlie other extn-nie. uuicl* 

 of the Great Plains and most of the Spiing Wheat Area average over L'OO acres per farm. 

 The sharp gradation zone extending from northwestern Minnesota to Indiana, thence 

 to central Texas, marks the eastern margin of the prairies (.see Fig. 7). I'rairie farms 

 were more easily and quickly made than forest farms, and have remained larger, (bee 

 Fig. lll.> 



