72 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 
crops of rice, wheat, barley, maize, and dourra; the Nile wheat 
crop is 10,000,000 bushels. In the Barbary States, maize and wheat 
predominate, associated with millets, barley, and rice, in the low- 
lying Tell country, and on the northern slopes of the Atlas high- 
lands ; but there is very little cultivation in Tripoli. The Algerian 
wheat crop is 25,000,000 bushels. Taking Africa as a whole, the 
chief cereals are maize and millets, the latter mostly Sorghum 
vulgare (dourra or Kaffir-corn) ; rice is sparingly dispersed through- 
out nearly the whole continent, but is cultivated most largely in the 
Nile delta and low-lying coastal region of Senegambia and Guinea. 
The Soudan is a fertile belt producing maize, dourra, and rice. 
For Abyssinia, we have already mentioned the vertical zones of 
cereal cultivation ; maize and millets are the staples of this fertile 
country. In South Africa, wheat, barley, and oats, are grown most 
generally south of the 30th parallel; maize (mealies) is every- 
where the prevailing grain, yielding abundant crops. The 
temperate grains are now being grown on the Mashonaland 
plateau, lat. 18° S., which has an elevation of 4,500-6,000 feet above 
the sea, the mean annual temperature being 53° F., and the yearly 
rainfall thirty-four inches. 
On the American continent, oats predominate in the eastern 
part of British North America, associated with barley and wheat ; 
the yield averaging for oats and barley about 30 bushels, for 
wheat 17. Rye is very little cultivated. In the western part 
of the Dominion, which has a hotter climate, wheat predomi- 
nates. Manitoba, with its famous wheat district of the Red River 
Valley, has 1,000,000 acres under wheat, 400,000 under oats, and 
about 100,000 under barley, the average yield being as above 
stated ; rye a very small crop. The Canadian wheat crop is about 
45,000,000 bushels. 
In the United States, rye and barley, except in the Pacific States, 
are not much cultivated, but about 30,000,000 acres are devoted to 
oats. The United States wheat crop 1s 4-500,000,000 bushels, the 
average yield being 12. Maize is everywhere associated with 
wheat, from the Ottawa basin and the Upper St. Lawrence valley 
to the Mexican Gulf, maize always taking a long lead. The maize 
crop of Iowa, for example, is 350,000,000 bushels; oats, 120,000,000; 
wheat, 35,000,000. In Texas, the maize crop is 75,000,000 bushels ; 
oats, 15,c00,000; wheat, 8,000,000. Maize is by far the largest cereal 
crop in the United States—about 2,000,000,000 bushels of 60 lbs, 
West of the rooth meridian to the Pacific States (but excluding 
these and Utah) there is hardly any cultivation, owing to barren- 
ness of the soil and lack of irrigation. In the Pacific States, which 
receive an abundant rainfall from the moisture-laden S.W. winds, 
wheat, oats, and barley are very extensively cultivated, wheat pre- 
dominating especially in California (in the Great Valley between 
the Sierra Nevada and the coast range). The Californian wheat 
crop iS 33,000,000 bushels; barley 16,000,000 ; maize, oats, and 
rye are much smaller crops. The rice-growing states are the 
Carolinas, Georgia, and Louisiana, the last-named producing by 
