42 BULT.ETTN 696, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGETCULTURE. 



SUMMARY. 



Local types of agriculture are established by a combination of 

 physical and commercial limitations. Yields to the acre may be said 

 to reflect limitations of climate and soil; the farm or producers' 

 price is a result of commercial factors which vary with each item of 

 farm production in a section. Moreover, such factors are dynamic 

 in character. 



Extreme geographic variations prevail in the farm price of a 

 product throughout the United States. Prices rise in the direction 

 taken by the flow of a commodity from the regions of surplus to 

 those of deficient production. A region of high prices for one prod- 

 uct may have decidedly low prices for another. Such variations are 

 usually consistent and may be illustrated in corn prices. 



Lowest prices are paid to producers of corn in the corn belt, from 

 eastern Nebraska to western Ohio. The minimum price is found in 

 the northwestern corner of this section, in adjoining parts of Iowa, 

 Minnesota, South Dakota, and Nebraska. This area of minimum 

 price forms a depression, moving away from which prices attain 

 constantly higher levels to all points of the compass. Tlie degree of 

 price increase is unequal; slowest across through the corn belt, 

 but more pronounced when the eastern States are reached. West- 

 ward and northward, where areas of scant production are close 

 at hand, and where corn moves in smaller volume, price levels rise 

 rapidly. This is also true farther to the south. The maximum 

 prices are found in the Southwest and Southeast, in the sections 

 producing insufficient corn which are farthest from the corn belt. 



Within the territory of low corn prices are comprised the areas 

 of greatest corn and live-stock production. They contribute almost 

 the entire gross corn supply of the country and substantially all the 

 corn entering trade channels. The minimum price obtains in the 

 part of the corn belt which is most disadvantageously located with 

 regard to important markets. All other sections produce less than 

 their requirements and must supplement local crops by shipments 

 from the surplus-producing country. 



Prices rise irregularly in the direction of this distributive move- 

 ment, which is somewhat complex. The trade currents are influenced 

 by the manifold uses of corn, conditions in foreign and domestic 

 live stock and grain markets, and the flexible character of the demand 

 as expressed by variations in annual com consumption. In tracing 

 the geography of corn production in relation to prices, consumption, 

 and conamerce, notable regional differences are encountered. The 

 bulk of the crop is consumed where it is produced — ^in the corn belt — 

 for live-stock production ; in the western half of the country hardly 

 2 per cent of the nation's crop is produced; and here, as in the 



