PLANT ANALYSIS AS AN APPLIED SCIENCE 193 
tinues to be the leading productive industry of the country, 
and cereal production the most prominent feature of this in¬ 
dustry. . . . 
“The increase in grain production, since the previous cen¬ 
sus enumeration, is in part due to the cultivation of new lands 
in the West and in the Northwest, but more largely due to 
gain in farming regions already occupied in 1870. The popu¬ 
lar belief that the chief increase in production and the rapid 
growth of the grain exports is due to the cropping of new and 
cheap lands, is not sustained by the census enumeration. 
The tables of production show that the most of the grain is 
in regions some time in cultivation, and on lands ranging in 
value from $30 per acre upwards. . . . 
“The actual production of 58.8 bushels per head of total 
population shows that the United States must be a grain¬ 
exporting country, notwithstanding the enormously large 
consumption by its population. The grain and flour exports 1 
for the five years ending June 30, 1880, amount as follows: — 
Wheat and corn. 833,692,207 bushels 
Flour and corn meal. 24,850,316 “ 
Total value.$892,788,117 
“The profitable cultivation 2 of cereals on a large scale is 
more dependent upon climate than upon soil. Rocks of va¬ 
rious geological ages underlie the different portions of the 
chief grain-producing regions. The immediate influence of 
the underlying rocks is, however, greater in the southern and 
western portions of the United States than in the northern 
and eastern.” The production and distribution of grain in 
the United States is influenced largely by the physical charac¬ 
ter of the soil. “The portions producing the bulk of the grain 
have soils of reasonable fertility, but are also those which 
are easily tilled, and upon which the best machinery and labor- 
saving appliances can be most readily used.” 
“The acreage and crop 3 of wheat, in 1879, amounted to 
35>43°>°5 2 acres, 459,579,505 bushels; the acreage being 29.7 
1 Cereal Report, p. 383. 2 Ibid., p. 396. 
Ibid., pp. 440-442. 
