NECESSITY OF ZONE MAPS. 17 



agriculture very largely depends. It is not enough to succeed in 

 growing crops well adapted to a particular locality, for bountiful 

 crops are of little value unless they can be profitably marketed. But 

 in order to reach the best markets it is necessary to ascertain the 

 prices various products bring from year to year in different parts of 

 the country, to make quantitative studies of production and con- 

 sumption, to avoid overproduction, to study statistics of our imports 

 and exports, and give thoughtful attention to questions of transpor- 

 tation ; in short, to study commercial geography, at least so far as it 

 relates to the products of one's own farm. 



The number and value of the exotic crops now grown successfully 

 in the United States, swelling our revenue by many millions of dol- 

 lars, is a monument to the industry, perseverance, and determination 

 of the American people, but affords little clue to the multitude of 

 failures and the enormous sums of money lost in experimentation. 

 And it must be admitted that a very large proijortion of these costly 

 experiments have been conducted blindly, or at least without the aid 

 of the scientific knowledge so necessary to success. As Professor 

 Plilgard states in a recent report, "the farmer is left to his own devices 

 to find liis way as best he may; and we grope along laboriously gath- 

 ering driblets of information here and there, and gradually, tenta- 

 tively putting them together into a more or less connected whole; " It 

 is not so with other industries. Railroad corporations planning new 

 lines study topographic maps and employ skilled engineers that they 

 may ascertain the most feasible routes ; capitalists having in view the 

 purchase of mining ijroperties employ experienced mineral experts 

 that they may learn the direction, extent, and value of the mineral- 

 bearing rocks; manufacturers employ not only skilled artisans, but 

 also expert machinists, chemists, and electrical engineers that their 

 apparatus and methods may yield the fullest returns. But the farmer 

 in his struggle with the soil has none of these resources, and as a rule 

 has little capital to risk in experiments. 



The Biological Survey aims to assist him by laying before him maps 

 of the agricultural belts and their subdivisious, with lists of the crops 

 suited to each. These mai)s, studied with reference to the commer- 

 cial availability of the different agricultural areas, including the 

 various arms or extensions of the life zones, and with due respect to 

 the density of population and facilities for transportation, are believed 

 to contain much that will be found useful to the progressive student 

 of agriculture. 



1002— No. 10 2 



