PRICE MAPS. 
Sectional differences in the farmers' price of oats have been charted 
on Maps 1 and 2. In Map 1 a price unit of 10 cents has been used to 
show tendencies due to broad general influences, as distinct from the 
minor variations due to local factors. Minor variations are shown in 
Map 2, which is more detailed. 
The farm prices of oats, by counties, which form the base of these 
maps — averages by counties for the five years, 1910-1914 — are given 
in the Appendix; also a further explanation of data and methods. 
SURVEY OF REGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN FARM PRICES OF OATS. 
Lowest prices paid for oats to farmers are along the northern 
boundary of the United States, from Ohio westward. The mioimum. 
price (Map 2) is seen in adjoining parts of North Dakota and Minne- 
sota, in the north-central part of the country. From this zone the 
price levels of oats graduate upward in the various directions. East- 
ward through the grain belt, as far as Ohio, prices rise slowly, but 
through the Atlantic States a more rapid rise takes place; the in- 
creases are gradual westward also, toward the Pacific coast. It is 
in the south that the higher prices are most noteworthy. Highest 
prices are paid to growers of oats in the southeast — in Florida, 
Georgia, and South Carolina — where the prices are more than twice 
as high as in the zone of minimum price. 
PRICE LEVELS AND TRADE ROUTES. 
Map 3 shows the relative importance of different parts of the 
United States in the production of oats, according to the census for 
the year 1909. 
Although oats are a northern crop, their production within the 
United States is more general than that of any of the other cereals, 
because they can be grown on a variety of soils, because they fit 
readily into crop rotations, and because the practice of fall sowing 
in the South has made it possible to grow oats with good returns in 
that section. But the great bulk of the crop is produced in the 
sections of lowest price. 
It will be observed that the zones of low price coincide with areas 
of dense and surplus production. A price divide appears between 
sections which ship to the East and South and those which ship 
to the West and South. The line of demarcation is indicated, 
roughly, by the territory of minimum price, which is remotely 
situated with regard to the markets in either direction. 
Prices paid to producers of oats attain higher levels toward all 
points of the compass, rising steadily, as a rule, with distance from 
this region of lowest price. Emerging from the sections of large 
