42 BULLETIN 696, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGBICULTUBE. 
SUMMARY. 
Local types of agriculture are established by a combination of 
physical and commercial limitations. Yields to the acre may be said 
to reflect limitations of climate and soil; the farm or producers' 
price is a result of commercial factors which vary with each item of 
farm production in a section. Moreover, such factors are dynamic 
in character. 
Extreme geographic variations prevail in the farm price of a 
product throughout the United States. Prices rise in the direction 
taken by the flow of a commodity from the regions of surplus to 
those of deficient production. A region of high prices for one prod- 
uct may have decidedly low prices for another. Such variations are 
usually consistent and may be illustrated in corn prices. 
Lowest prices are paid to producers of corn in the corn belt, from 
eastern Nebraska to western Ohio. The minimum price is found in 
the northwestern corner of this section, in adjoining parts of Iowa, 
Minnesota, South Dakota, and Nebraska. This area of minimum 
price forms a depression, moving away from which prices attain 
constantly higher levels to all points of the compass. The degree of 
price increase is unequal; slowest across through the corn belt, 
but more pronounced when the eastern States are reached. "West- 
ward and northward, where areas of scant production are close 
at hand, and where corn moves in smaller volume, price levels rise 
rapidly. This is also true farther to the south. The maximum 
prices are found in the Southwest and Southeast, in the sections 
producing insufficient corn which are farthest from the corn belt. 
Within the territory of low corn prices are comprised the areas 
of greatest corn and live-stock production. They contribute almost 
the entire gross corn supply of the country and substantially all the 
corn entering trade channels. The minimum price obtains in the 
part of the corn belt which is most disadvantageously located with 
regard to important markets. All other sections produce less than 
their requirements and must supplement local crops by shipments 
from the surplus-producing country. 
Prices rise irregularly in the direction of this distributive move- 
ment, which is somewhat complex. The trade currents are influenced 
by the manifold uses of corn, conditions in foreign and domestic 
live stock and grain markets, and the flexible character of the demand 
as expressed by variations in annual corn consumption. In tracing 
the geography of corn production in relation to prices, consumption, 
and commerce, notable regional differences are encountered. The 
bulk of the crop is consumed where it is produced — in the corn belt — 
for live-stock production ; in the western half of the country hardly 
2 per cent of the nation's crop is produced; and here, as in the 
