36 Nebraska Experiment Station Research Bui. 15 
the lines at many points in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kan- 
sas show a number of reactions. This is particularly true 
of the lines marking the western edge of two-section farming 
in 1890 and 1900. One of the outstanding features of the 
1,280-acre line in 1890 is its marked westward bend into 
northeastern Colorado. Within this bend homesteading 
reached one of its highest points. In the late eighties and 
early nineties, people here occupied a country developed more 
out of harmony with rainfall and heat than could be found at 
any point either to the north or to the south. The line drawn 
for the year 1900 gives at least a partial view of the reaction 
that followed.* It was most severe in southwestern Nebraska 
and northwestern Kansas. To the north and south of these 
areas the reactionary movement gradually disappears. 
SIZE OF FARM IN RELATION TO RAINFALL AND HEAT 
The size of farm in 1880 and 1910 was probably more uni- 
formly adjusted to rainfall and heat than it was in either 1890 
or 1900. (See Figs. 24, 25, 26, and 27.) Nevertheless, each 
map in the series just referred to shows a tendency for its 
lines to converge to the south more rapidly than rainfall. 
(See Fig. 18.) This convergence is more readily seen when 
the lines in the eastern quarter of Texas are covered. Figure 
15 is a diagram on which the 1910 size-of-farm lines are 
plotted according to inches of rainfall used as degrees of 
longitude and month-degrees used as degrees of latitude. The 
320-acre line and the lines to the east of it follow approxi- 
mately the same quantity of rainfall regardless of an increase 
or decrease in the quantity of heat. To the west of the 320- 
acre line the section and two-section size of farm veer rapidly 
into higher rainfall to the east as the quantity of heat in- 
creases to the south. As was mentioned in the introductory 
discussion of the 1,280-acre lines, a small part of this variation 
may be due to a slower development of western farming in the 
south. 
•It must bo borne In mind that some notions nnd reactions were so sharp that 
mejisurements made at ten-year Intervals conld not fnllv record them. 
