813] Machinery and Production 15 



then existing in the Southern States. Some allowance 

 should, doubtless, be made also, in the table as a whole, 

 for changes in the proportion of the several cereal pro- 

 ducts to the total cereal product. 



In the matter of the corn crop reported upon by the 

 census of 1870, it is interesting to note how differently 

 the figures would appear had the yield for that year been 

 a normal one. The average yield of corn, for that year, 

 as estimated by the Department of Agriculture, was 

 23.6 bushels ; but the average for the previous year was 

 26.0 bushels and that for the succeeding year was 28.3 

 bushels. 1 The medium between the averages for the 

 next preceding and next succeeding years is 27.1 

 bushels. With an average yield per acre of corn equal 

 to this medium number the cereal product for the census 

 year 1870 would have been increased by 131,177,939 

 bushels and the index number representing the cereal 

 production of that year, instead of being 224.9 would 

 have been 246.2. If this latter number be substituted 

 in the column of index numbers for cereal production, 

 there will appear an unbroken increase in the propor- 

 tion of cereal products to population, during the whole 

 of the period under consideration. 2 



CONCERNING THE INCREASE IN CULTIVATED AREA PER 

 FARM WORKER AND THE GREATER EFFECTIVENESS 

 OF FARM WORKERS WHEN AIDED BY THE USE OF 

 MACHINERY, AS SHOWN BY REPORTS OF THE CENSUS 

 OFFICE 



The census office statistician for agriculture pre- 

 sents a table as follows : 3 



'Department of Agriculture, Year Book (1899), p. 759. 



2 See the right hand column of figures in the table of index num- 

 bers, p. 13. 



'Twelfth Census, Agriculture, I, p. xxxi. 



