232 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 
in those years made a steady gain from 36 to 82 and 99 millions. 
Production is so widely distributed, however, that the general total for 
the country is much more stable. 
For an orderly review of the movement of wheat from east to west 
in the United States four regions may be distinguished as follows: 
(1) the middle Atlantic States from New York to Virginia, including 
especially Pennsylvania and Maryland; (2) the five States of the “ Old 
North-West,’ lying between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes; 
(3) seven States west of the Mississippi River, including Missouri and 
Kansas on the south and Minnesota and North Dakota on the north, 
the wheat belt reaching to the arid parts of the Great Plains; (4) the 
Cordilleran region, extending to the Pacific Coast. 
The first of these regions was the North American centre of wheat 
from the first full establishment of the crop in the colonies until the 
Erie Canal and other means of communication opened to the east the 
possibilities of the Old North-West. The crops of New York for seven 
census years are as follows (the crop of 1908 is also included) : 
1839 sais “ce wae iva 12,286,418 bushels 
1849 ise “Ae aan w» 13,121,498 3 
1859 ate nee ree ee 8,681,105 Ae 
1869 aie sas 368 nes 9,750,000 i» 
1879 62 ee i ..- 10,746,000 4 
1889 ew wy ise des 8,929,000 si 
1899 ois Po sale sate 7,005,765 ‘i 
1908 eae ae ae “as 7,752,000 5 
The crop of 1905 rose above 10,000,000 bushels. Pennsylvania has 
had a fairly steady rise from 13,000,000 bushels in 1839 to 24,000,000 
in 1899, and her crop for 1908 was 29,000,000, ranking this State among 
great producers, a fact not often recognised. Maryland has almost 
trebled since 1869, and has been above the ten-million mark since 1897, 
producing nearly 15,000,000 bushels in 1907. Virginia fluctuates, 
usually producing from six to ten million bushels. Even West 
Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia show fairly steady records of 
several million bushels each. Taking those States which border the 
Atlantic, not including the Gulf, the total production of wheat in 1906 
was 76 million bushels. In production per square mile Maryland held 
third place in the census of 1900 and in that of 1890, and her crop 
per capita in 1907 was more than 11 bushels. New York’s production 
averages about one bushel per capita, and Pennsylvania’s rate. in her 
best years is about four bushels. 
These figures concerning the sustained yield of many States on the 
eastern border have been given to show that the decline in wheat culture 
in this region is largely relative rather than absolute, a fact with which 
common impressions are at variance. It is true that as a whole the needs 
of the local population are not met, and that here is a large market for 
western wheat, but it is not true that the soils are exhausted, or that 
the Atlantic belt of States fails, or will ever fail, to make a substantial 
contribution to the bread supply of the nation. New England’s contri- 
bution was never of great significance, but it is of interest to note 
that in recent years Maine and Vermont are the only States in that 
group which make a report of this cereal. 
Before passing to the remaining major regions, it will be of interest 
