18 



BULLETIN 341, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Table III. — Percentage of crop area devoted to each crop; 378 Pennsylvania 



owners. 



[Illinois survey data and Chester County census figures included for comparison.] 



Crop. 



Total corn 



Potatoes 



Wheat 



Oats 



Total hay. . . . 



Fruit 



Truck 



Special crops 



Miscellaneous crops. 



Total 

 Total tilled'crops "(field).' 



Total small grain 



Total hay. 



Total crop area. 



378 Penn- 

 sylvania 

 owners. 



Per cent. 



22.3 



6.0 



18.2 



6.4 



44.0 



2.5 



.3 



(a) ■ 



.3 



100.0 

 28.3 

 24.7 

 44.0 



Chester 



1910 census 



figure. 



Per cent. 



22.1 



4.8 



18.0 



9.9 



39.0 



2.8 



.8 



.6 



2.0 



100.0 

 26.9 

 28.7 

 39.0 



73 Illinois 

 owners. 



Per cent. 



53.9 



(o) 



18.7 



18.9 



7.3 



1.2 



100.0 



53.9 



37.6 



7.3 



a Less than o:ae-ha;f of 0.1 per cent. 



The reasons why these various crops occupy the places they do in 

 the agriculture of this region will be discussed in some, detail in 

 another portion of this bulletin. 



For the sake of comparison, the percentage area is given in Table 

 III for the various crops on a group of Illinois farms included in a 

 survey and reported in Bulletin 41 of this department. 1 Wheat is 

 the only crop which occupies a similar status in the two localities. In 

 the corn-belt area corn occupies more than twice the area it does in 

 Chester County. This is not so much because corn is so much better 

 adapted to the western locality; in fact, the yield of corn per acre 

 is "considerably higher on the Pennsylvania farms than it is on the 

 Illinois farms. It is due rather to the fact that economic conditions 

 in/the western locality are not so favorable to other crops as they 

 are in the East. 



The most striking difference between the two regions is the 

 difference in the relative acreage of hay. Hay does just as well in 

 Illinois as it does in Pennsylvania, but economic and other conditions 

 are not so favorable for its production. In the first place, beef cattle and 

 hogs, which are the dominant productive live stock in the Illinois area, 

 consume much less hay than do dairy cattle, which are the dominant 

 type in Chester County. In the second place, the price of hay in the 

 West is much less than it is in the East. We have here an excellent 

 illustration of the fact that conditions other than soil and climate 

 must be taken into consideration in determining what crops the 

 farmer should grow. 



1 A Farm-Management Survey of Three Representative Areas in Indiana, Illinois, and 

 Iowa, 1914. 



