340 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



We are now led to inquire why such a shifting of the wheat 

 industry has taken place. The answer to this query is important, 

 for it explains not merely the cause of changes in farming within 

 the confines of the state of Minnesota, but it will also account for 

 that larger movement of the wheat industry from New York to 

 Ohio and Illinois and thence to the great Northwest and the 

 Pacific coast. 



If we examine the kind of farming carried on in the south and 

 southeast portions of Minnesota today, we shall notice that it is 

 highly diversified. Creameries or cheese factories are found in 

 every township. Barley, corn, or hay is raised in the place of 

 wheat ; and these products are not sold in the market directly, but 

 are fed to cattle and hogs on the farm. The cattle are not raised 

 primarily for beef, but rather for the milk from which butter and 

 cheese the direct products for the market are derived. Meat, 

 hides, etc., from the cattle so far as they are marketed serve 

 in reality as a by-product. 



Why have these farmers abandoned wheat-raising and taken up 

 dairy-farming ? The land is just as fertile here as in any part of 

 the state. Just as many bushels of wheat per acre were raised in 

 Olmsted County in 1870 as can be raised today on the best wheat 

 lands of the Red River valley. The land in Olmsted County is 

 as fertile now as it was thirty-five years ago. It is not, therefore, a 

 difference in fertility or adaptability in soil or condition of climate 

 that has caused the change. Neither can it be clue to a difference 

 in the contour of the land. The southern and southeastern counties 

 of the state contain plains upon which modern agricultural 

 machinery can be used as easily as in the Red River region. The 

 cost of agricultural machinery, the price of wheat, the cost of farm 

 labor, and the rate of interest charged on farm loans are all such 

 as to give a relative advantage to the farmers in the southeastern 

 counties rather than to those further northwest. The cause of the 

 change must therefore be sought elsewhere. 



When the southeastern counties of the state were first settled, 

 wheat-growing was the kind of farming adopted. As the settle- 

 ments were gradually extended northward and westward each 

 locality in its turn adopted wheat-growing at first. It follows that 



