Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 54.djvu/167
155
UNITED STATES' WHEAT-GROWING CAPACITY.
duction of our principal crops for the year 1897 is given in the table below. If miscellaneous crops be added to these principal crops, the cultivated land of this country does not now exceed, and in fact does not reach, twenty per cent of the arable land, while from the cultivated portion a progressive increase in product may be expected under the impetus of improved methods of farming on lessening areas in each farm.
Maize
Wheat
Oats
Barley. . . .
Rye
Buckwheat.
All grain.
Hay
Cotton
Acreage.
80,095,051
39,465,066
25,730,375
2,719,116
1,703,561
717,836
150,431,005
42,426,770
23,273,209
216,130,984
Yield.
Per acre.
?23
?8
?13
?4
?27
?2
?24
?5
?16
?1
?20
?9
?1
43
Product.
Bushels.
1,902,967,933
530,149,168
698,767,809
66,685,127
27,363,324
14,997,451
3,240,930,812
60,664,876
8,532,705
Price.
Cents. 26.3 80.8 21.2 37.7 44.7 42.1
6.62
6.78
Value.
$501,072,952
'428,547,121
147,974,719
25,142,139
12,239,647
6,319,188
$1,121,295,766
401,390,728
291,811,564
$1,814,498,058
Maize 125,150 square miles;
Wheat 61,660 " "
Oats 40,200 " "
Barley 4,250 " "
Rye 2,660 " "
Buckwheat 1,120 " "
235,040
Hay 66,290
Cotton 36,520
337,850
The area under wheat in 1897 was a fraction under forty million acres, or a little less than sixty-two thousand square miles. The high price secured for that crop has led to an increase in land under wheat in 1898 to a fraction under seventy-one thousand square miles (nine thousand square miles added), on which the largest crop ever known has doubtless been raised, variously computed at the present time from 620,000,000 to 700,000,000 bushels. The area now under wheat is therefore less-than four per cent of our arable land.
In order to develop our potential in wheat it will be best to limit our present consideration to three States only — namely, Minnesota, North and South Dakota — from which we derive the greater part of our spring wheat. The area of these three States is two hundred and thirty-two thousand square miles, disregarding fractions. The land which is deemed to be suitable for wheat growing is estimated by the officials from whom I have derived reports at one hundred and sixty
