156 RURAL NEW YORK 



lake somewhat by the development of fruit-growing. 

 The eastern half of the State produces less than 50,- 

 000 bushels a county and many of them only a few 

 hundred bushels. The counties of Ontario, Living- 

 ston and Genesee normally have an average yield of 

 nearly 35 bushels. The largest total production of 

 wheat was in 1850 w^hen it attained 13,100,000 bush- 

 els. The acreage was then about 750,000. Soon 

 after that time, the " wheat weevil " appeared and 

 caused such damage to the crop during the succeed- 

 ing fifteen years as to force a change in the rota- 

 tion and a considerable abandonment of wheat-grow- 

 ing. The acreage was as low as 289,000 acres in 

 1910, but increased again during the World War to 

 435,000 acres. The ten-year average yield has in- 

 creased regularly from 14.1 bushels in 1879 to 19.3 

 in the seven-year period from 1906 to 1913. Spring 

 wheat was early grown in the higher hill regions, 

 then abandoned and recently has again been grown 

 to the extent of nearly 30,000 acres. 



Wheat production fits in with that of beans and 

 canning-factory peas. The former crop in particu- 

 lar, which occupies a large acreage in this same region, 

 is harvested and out of the way in good season for 

 planting wheat. Beans leave a clean, firm seed-bed 

 favorable for wheat and the residual fertilizer and 

 the legume residue combine to make the succession 

 a good one. In that same region, clover seeded with 

 timothy is the most common hay mixture, and wheat 

 makes a good nurse crop for these. Further, or per- 

 haps basic to all these facts, is the prevalence of clay 



