24 BULLETIN 594, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Recent figures for cost of production in the United States are not 
available for any recent period, hence an old inquiry (1909) has been 
used. For the present purpose of comparing cost conditions in one 
section of the country with another the figures still possess value. 
Prices and yields employed are averages for the five years, 1911-1915. 
RETROSPECTIVE VIEW, 1871 TO 1915. 
Present tendencies. 
Changing sectional price advantage; minimum price moving west and north; 
decreasing disparity in prices between surplus and deficient wheat regions; . 
shifting conditions in Mountain States. 
Trend of yields to the acre, by States and sections. 
Trend of value per acre, coordinating price and yield, by States and sections. 
Geographic changes in population; wheat production and acreage; per capita 
production. 
Importance appears to attach to the fact that the geographic 
differences in farm prices are not fixed; that, on the contrary, they 
are dynamic in character, changing with producing and distributive 
conditions. Each factor herein is variable. The result may be 
likened to a slowly moving current in which more or less strong 
eddies are produced by diverse causes, each circle impinging and 
merging into the general flow. Mere reference is sufficient here to 
the continuing agricultural readjustments within the United States, 
coincident with the westward movement of population, grain, and 
live-stock production and markets; the transitions from surplus 
grain production, low land values, and relatively low prices, to a 
more diversified farming, higher land values, prices, etc.; the in- 
creasing wheat deficiency of the older regions, and more recently, 
development through irrigation of the arid interior. The distance 
between the eastern areas deficient in wheat production and the 
surplus-producing territories to the west has steadily widened; this 
has to some extent been offset by cheapening costs of transportation 
as well as lower marketing expense. Prices have responded to these 
transformations, and present geographic tendencies therein may be 
seen through their indicated development. 
The reflection of economic changes can be seen in Table IV (p. 26), 
showing shifting in geographic price advantages of wheat, from 1871 
to 1915. A ‘“‘wave length” of five years was employed to avoid 
unusual variations. Particular attention is directed to the per- 
centages, based on the United States figure as 100 per cent. 
The minimum farm price has moved steadily north and west. 
In 1871-1875 it appeared in Nebraska; in 1891-1895 in the Dakotas; 
and in 1911-1915 in Idaho and Montana. During the period covered 
by Table IV, geographic differences in wheat prices, although still 
large, have narrowed notably; particularly is this true as between 
importing eastern and exporting western States. The diminishing 
