pounds, worth $450,447,243. The 1910 cotton crop of Texas alone was greater than that of British India, nearly three times that of Egypt and half as much again as the crop of the world outside of the United States, India and Egypt. Cotton and tobacco were among the first export articles grown in America. In 1910 the live animal exports exceeded a value of $17,000,000, while the packing house and dairy products aggregated $130,632,783.
Crop Acreage and Value. According to the national census of the year 1900 there were in the United States 838,591,774 acres, or about 1,310,300 square miles, divided into 5,737,372 farms. Of their entire areas perhaps half were under cultivation. In 1910 the wealth-production of the farms of the United States amounted to $8,926,000,000. Among the crops largest in acreage and contributing to this wealth the most important is Indian corn or maize, a product native to America. The crop of 1910 amounted to 3,121,381,000 bushels, grown on approximately 108,500,000 acres. The value of the 1909 corn crop of the United States was $1,652,822,000, and no other crop of the year was worth half so much. Naturally, corn is more used in America for human food than in other countries, but this is little compared with the whole, and by far the most is utilized in the meat-making industry, of which it is the mainstay and buttress. Its commercial uses have been largely increased in late years, however, and it is important in the manufacture of such commodities as alcohol, starch, glucose, cellulose and oils for various uses, and the newer products have resulted in increasing its price.
Corn is grown in every state and territory, but in recent years the six states of Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Indiana and Kansas have yielded the major portion. In 1906 these states raised nearly 60 per cent of the year’s product. Corn contributes more to the nation’s wealth than any other of the cereals. Of the world’s total production of 3,478,328,000 bushels of corn in 1908, the United States raised 2,668,651,000 bushels.
Wheat comes second among the grain crops, and as a nation the United States ranks first in its production. The crop of 1909 was 737,189,000 bushels from 46,723,000 acres. For the five years ending with 1909 the average annual yield was somewhat over 700,000,000 bushels. Large quantities of wheat and wheat-flour are exported. Oats, rice, sugar-cane, potatoes, rye, barley, buckwheat and many other crops receive more or less attention, the climate and character of the soil in large measure dictating which shall be grown. Timothy, clovers, blue-grass, alfalfa, and the like, often mixed, and the native wild grasses, both for meadows and pastures, claim vast areas, and especially in many of the central and more western states immense tracts of native grasses are utilized for grazing purposes alone. No survey of agriculture in America would be adequate without special mention of alfalfa or lucerne, which, while one of the world’s oldest forage plants, is one of the newest to America. Within a decade its values have brought it to attention as one of the richest acquisitions to the farm. Considerably more valuable as a feed, acre for acre, than the justly-prized red clover, it is even superior as a soil renovator and fertilizer. In the Middle West especially it has already made itself a permanent place, and to this more than to any other agency perhaps is due the marvelous growth of the dairy industry there, which is a striking feature of its husbandry, as it is an important one to the whole country. (See Alfalfa.)
Dairy Industry. Indeed, a foremost branch of American agriculture is the dairy, and in recent years its progress has been most marked. The Babcock test, a simple but accurate device for ascertaining the per cent of fat in milk, and the separator which extracts the fat from the milk by centrifugal force, have been incalculable aids to dairymen as well as to the progress of the dairy industry. The Babcock test, in connection with the scales, enables the farmer to detect the profitable and unprofitable cows. The separator cannot only separate the butter-fat from the milk as soon as drawn from the cow, but secures more of the butter-fat or cream from the milk than is possible by the old and laborious gravity system of setting milk in pans or other receptacles and skimming by hand. Creameries and cheese factories mark the thriftier agricultural communities, and it is not uncommon for these institutions to draw their supplies from long distances, many railroads supplying special milk trains to insure prompt delivery. The skill and appliances required for the making of high-grade articles are such that the manufacturing of butter and cheese for commercial purposes has become an extensive business, and has raised the quality of the product as well as taken a burden from the formerly overtaxed housewives.
Silos.—The storage of green or partly green forage crops, such as corn, the clovers and the sorghums, in silos, which then becomes silage, has overcome many difficulties of the cattle grower, and especially of the dairyman, making available in winter succulent food second only to June pastures. It not only saves in feed and labor, but makes possible the keeping of an increased number of animals on a given area, as by its use pasture can be largely or entirely dispensed with. It promotes an intensive husbandry that makes possible greater returns from the same farm, and helps to simplify the problem of winter feeding. Use of the silo affords ideal conditions both for the preparation and conservation of feed, and its introduction
