236 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 
An examination of this movement brings out some interesting facts. 
The amount of westward migration in fifty years was 680 miles. ‘The 
northward movement was about 99 miles. The latitude yariation was 
marked by slight fluctuations for 40 years, and then in a single decade 
wheat moved more than 2° northward, owing to rapid increase in the 
North-West. The greatest westward movement was in the first decade, 
1850-1860, amounting to more than 200 miles. The westward move- 
ment in the ten years 1890-1900 was a little less than 100 miles. 
At the last census the centre of population was in south central 
Indiana; the centre of manufacture was in central Ohio; of corn in 
western Illinois between Springfield and St. Louis; of all cereals, on 
the Mississippi River near Keokuk, Iowa; and the centre of wheat was 
in western Iowa. In 1850 the corn and wheat centres were near each 
other in Ohio. Wheat has outrun all the other great interests in its 
westward march. 
The present position of the centre of wheat raises a most interesting 
inquiry. The latest data are for 1908, and returns from a few minor 
States are not before the writer. For exact determination detailed figures 
for counties are used by the Census Bureau. But taking the State 
totals, it appears that 320,000,000 bushels, approximately, were raised 
in the States east of the Mississippi, plus the tier of States bordering 
the west bank of that river. This is a little less than half the crop, and 
would seem to carry the centre for 1908 out of Lowa and across the 
Missouri River. Considering latitude movement, it must be noted that 
California has fallen off, but this is partly offset by a decreased crop also 
in Oregon. The crops, however, of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, and 
Indiana, which are mostly south of the centre of 1899, were much 
greater in relation to the total in 1908 than in 1899. It would seem 
clear, therefore, that for 1908 the centre has returned southward, and 
might probably be found in south-eastern Nebraska. 
Passing to the inquiry as to the centre of wheat in North America, 
it is to be observed that the Canadian crop of 1908+ was 112,434,000 
bushels. 
To take this into account would move the centre as determined for 
the United States northward across a belt sufficient to raise half the 
Canadian product, or 56,000,000 bushels. Assuming the centre for 
the States as in south-eastern Nebraska in 1908, this belt would cross 
southern Iowa and the northern part of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and 
Pennsylvania. As these States are heavy growers, the belt would be 
narrow, and the centre for North America would not go higher in 
latitude than that for the States in 1899. 
The greater part of Canadian wheat, about 92 out of 112 million 
bushels in 1908, is raised in the western provinces, and therefore 
westward of the centre for the States. Making allowance in a similar 
manner, the longitude centre for North America would be found by 
passing westward across a section of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, 
and Oklahoma, and would probably lie in Nebraska, 100 miles or 
less westward from Omaha. This is more than 500 miles from the 
Canadian border, and the Dominion’s production must vastly increase 
before the 49th parallel will be approached. 
The importance of the new development in the north is not, how- 
1 Census and Statistics Monthly, Ottawa, December 1908. 
