The United States — Land and Waters 179 



cotton-raising for this is a part of the 

 great cotton belt. The plain merges 

 with the Mississippi Valley which from 

 our northern border to the Gulf is the 

 preeminent agricultural zone of the 

 country, the northern part of it, man- 

 tled with the fertile rock mixtures of 

 the glacial drift, the richest area of 

 wheat and maize in the world ; the 

 southern part, included in the cotton 

 belt, which supplies nearly three-fourths 

 of the world's cotton ; and in the bor- 

 der lands between them a zone of to- 

 bacco cultivation, our largest area de- 

 voted to this crop. 



have been much impaired by overgraz- 

 ing and must be nursed back to their 

 former productivity. Just as the nib- 

 bling sheep have destroyed all verdure 

 on the mountains of Greece so they 

 have been very effective in killing out 

 much of the nutritious bunch and other 

 grasses on the plains and among the 

 mountain pastures farther west. The 

 plains gradually rise till they merge 

 with the Great Plateaus which embrace 

 about a third of the country and with 

 their surmounting mountains extend 

 nearly to the Pacific. They are the 

 largest sources of our precious metals 



Willard I). Johns 



A Field of Watermelons, Western Kansas 



West of the Great Valley the plains 

 begin to rise midway between the two 

 oceans. It is to be observed that the 

 main axes of all our predominant topo- 

 graphic features extend north and south 

 excepting the Great Lakes whose main 

 axis is east and west. The plains ex- 

 tending from Canada to Mexico and 

 gradually rising to the western plateaus 

 are the largest field of the grazing in- 

 dustry which has long supplied most of 

 our export beef though not our export 

 cattle, the greater number of which are 

 fattened in the corn belt. The plains 



in whose production we have for many 

 years usually surpassed other nations. 



UTILITY OF OUR MOUNTAINS 



We must count mountains as among 

 our greatest blessings. While our val- 

 leys and plains are the sources of most 

 of the food for man and beast it is from 

 the mountains that we derive a very 

 large part of our metals and other min- 

 erals. If we had a great mountain wall 

 stretching from east to west we might 

 be shielded from the Arctic blasts that 

 sweep down from the plains of Canada 



