340 THE BOOK OF CORN 



bushels. On the opposite coast the states of Vera 

 Cruz, a narrow belt along the Gulf with an area a little 

 over half that of Jalisco, produced 12,266,000 bushels, 

 Guanajuato grew 10,934,000 bushels, and Michoacan 

 5,020,000 bushels. Other states of important produc- 

 tion are Sinaloa, Hidalgo, Puebla, Oaxaca, Mexico and 

 Yucatan. Available statistics of yield show that in the 

 territory between the twenty-eighth and twenty-fifth 

 degrees of north latitude the annual rate of yield varies 

 considerably, indicating uncertain climatic conditions 

 and especially tendency to drouth damage. South of the 

 twenty-fifth parallel, especially in the coast states, the 

 yield from year to year runs quite uniform, and it is 

 in this district, where conditions are unusually perfect, 

 that the largest part of the crop increase in recent 

 years is centered. 



The Crop of Argentina — The area of Argentina 

 climatically fitted to the production of com is better 

 understood and much more circumscribed than in the 

 case of wheat. Broadly speaking, it is limited to the 

 northern part of the province of Buenos Aires and the 

 adjoining southern part of Santa Fe and including a 

 limited adjoining area in Cordoba and Entre Rios. 

 This district represents the most fertile available land 

 in the republic, and practically all the land where com 

 can be success ally grown one year with another. 

 North of this district long summer drouths come too 

 early and with too great regularity, while south, in 

 western and southern Buenos Aires, rainfall is too 

 irregular or the growing season too likely to be short- 

 ened by untimely frost. 



The first agricultural development of Argentina 

 was in the corn belt, and it is a striking fact that here 

 agricultural occupation has been more permanent than 

 in other districts of the country. In the wheat and flax 

 sections the farming population has been unstable, 



