absorbing water like a sponge and holding it well. There is a great
amount of fertile valley land, adequately watered. Alfalfa and other
cultivated grasses are encroaching on the whole region, and even the
natural arid-land bunch grasses make excellent grazing. The
“butte” soil of the W. is a fine sandy soil, characteristically calcareous,
derived from the Arikaree. With it also moisture is a great
factor in its productivity. The Bad Lands are by no means infertile
(their name, it should be noted, was originally Mauvaises terres à
traverser); but they are almost destitute of ground water, though
containing many green “pockets” where surface water can be
stored. They contain much clay and marls, non-absorbent and
subject to such excessive wash that vegetation cannot gain a foothold.
In various parts of the west are small tracts of so-called
“gumbo” soil; they are due to the Pierre shale, are poorly drained
and characteristically alkaline. Small alkaline areas also occur about
lakes in the sand-hills. Where surface water is adequate the regions
of the Pierre shale make splendid grazing lands; but in general they
are not very useful for agriculture. Salt lands occur about Salt Creek
notably around Lincoln. The stream bottoms of alluvium are modified
by loess and humic deposits, and are of course very fertile;
but hardly more so than the loess of the uplands.
Agriculture.—Agriculture is not only the chief industry but is also the foundation of the commerce and manufactures of the state. In 1900, of the total area 60·8% was reported as included in farms, and 37·5% as actually improved. The rank of the state in the Union was 13th in value of farm property, and 10th in value of farm products. The farm value was $747,950,057, an increase since 1890 of 46·1%; while the total product-value was $162,696,386—an increase (partly factitious) of 143·4% in the same period. A greater part of the state was reported improved in 1890 than in 1900; the change was due to the increase of stock-raising in the West. Similarly, the size of the average farm increased from 156·9 acres in 1880 to 190·1 in 1890, and 246·1 in 1900, although in eastern Nebraska there was a contrary tendency. Under the Kincaid law, which permits entire sections instead of quarter sections (160 acres) to be homesteaded, this movement has been fostered. In the years 1880–1900 the number of farms operated by cash tenants rose from 3·1 to 9·6%; of share tenants from 14·9 to 27·3% of the total. There is no appreciable tendency toward management for absentee owners. The census of 1900 showed that not less than two-fifths of the total net income came from live stock or from hay, grain and forage on farms representing together 96% of the farm-value of the state—live stock being a trifle more important; dairying was similarly predominant for 1·6%, and beet-sugar for 0·1%. Other crops were unimportant sources of revenue. Sugar-beet culture has developed since about 1889; it is localized largely in Lincoln county, near North Platte, though beets are raised over a large part (especially the western part) of the state. In 1907 about 11,000 acres were planted to sugar beets. The principal factory for the slicing of the beets is one built at Grand Island, Hall county, in 1890. The dairy interest is rapidly growing, but is still exceeded in other states. Omaha is a great dairy market. Nebraska ranks very high in the production of cattle and hogs. A fourth of all animal products are represented by milk, butter and cheese, eggs and poultry; the rest by animals killed on the farm or sold for slaughter, most of them going to supply the meat-packing industry of South Omaha. Wild, salt and prairie grasses make up the bulk of the forage acreage, but the cultivated crops—especially millet and Hungarian grasses and alfalfa—are more important. Holt county in the Elkhorn valley, and Sheridan county in the foot-hills, produce more than half the hay-crop of the state. Alfalfa can be grown with more or less success in every county of the state, not excepting areas where clay or sand form the sub-soil; but on the uplands of the central part of the state it is produced with the greatest success and in the greatest quantities. In 1908, according to the reports of the state Board of Agriculture, the crop of Custer, Dawson and Buffalo counties was about 15% of the total crop (1,846,703 tons) of the state. The product was quintupled between 1899 and 1905, and between 1905 and 1908 the increase was about 40%. It has been a great aid to western Nebraska as to other portions of the Great Plains. Sorghum and kafir corn are also excellent, and broom-corn fairly good, as drought-resistant crops; the last, which is of lessening importance, is localized in Cass, Saunders and Polk counties. Cereals are by far the most important crops, representing in 1899 four-fifths of farmed land and crop values. Allowing for variations in “off years,” but speaking with as much exactness as is possible, Nebraska has established her position since about 1900 in the third, fourth and fifth rank respectively among the states of the Union, in the production of Indian corn, wheat and oats. Of these, Indian corn is by far the most important, representing normally about two-thirds of the total crop value; while wheat and oats each represented in 1906 about one-seventh of the total crop, and rye, barley, kafir-corn and buckwheat make up the small remainder. Indian corn is grown to some extent all over the state, except in the north-west, but the great bulk of the crop is produced east of the 99th meridian. It is rarely cut, but is left to mature and dry on the stalk in the field. The yearly yield in the decade 1895–1904, according to the most conservative state statistics, varied from 298,599,638 to 72,445,227 bushels, and the average was 178,941,084 bushels, or 190,773,957, omitting the failure of 1901; the yield per acre being similarly 26·35 or 27·9 bushels (12·4 in 1901);[1] in 1906 the crop was 249,782,500 bushels, and the average yield per acre 34·1 bushels; in 1907 the crop was 179,328,000 bushels, and the average yield only 24 bushels per acre. According to the report of the state Board of Agriculture, Custer, Lancaster and Saunders counties produced the largest amounts (each more than 5,000,000 bushels) of Indian corn, in 1908. Since 1900 Nebraska has become one of the foremost winter wheat states, second only to Kansas. Little spring wheat is now sown except in the northern counties, the state being on the northern edge of the winter wheat belt. From 1880 to 1890 the acreage devoted to wheat greatly diminished, because the spring variety was not relatively remunerative, but the acreage trebled in the next decade as autumn planting increased. The winter varieties have the advantages of larger yield, earlier ripening and lesser loss from insects, and afford protection to the soil. The growth of durum (macaroni) wheat is also increasing, but is hampered by the uncertainty of market, which is for the most part foreign. The wheat crops of the decade 1895–1904 averaged 33,208,805 bushels a year; or ranged from a minimum of 9·8 to a maximum of 20·9, averaging 15·8 bushels to the acre; in 1906 the crop was 52,288,692 bushels, and the average yield 22 bushels per acre; and in 1907 the crop was 45,911,000 bushels, and the average yield 18·1 bushels per acre. In 1908 Clay, Adams and Hamilton were the principal wheat-growing counties in the state. The corresponding figures for oats were: average yield for the decade, 48,145,185 (range, 28,287,707 in 1901 to 66,810,065 in 1904); range of yield per acre, 17·9 to 34·0, and average 27·6 bushels per acre; in 1906 the crop was 72,275,000 bushels and the average yield per acre 29·5 bushels; in 1907 the crop was 51,490,000 bushels, and the average yield 20·4 bushels per acre. In the decade 1890–1900 the state did not rise above the 10th rank in the Union; after 1900 her rise was rapid. The same is even more markedly true of rye; in 1907 the crop was 1,502,000 bushels (from 88,400 acres), a yield exceeded in only five states in the country. Apples are raised in the N.E. and S.E. sections of the state, and are much the most important fruit grown. Peaches are next in importance, and horticultural enthusiasts believe that the possibilities of this crop are very great. Other fruits are raised with much success, and in 1904 at St Louis the horticultural exhibit of the state led those of all other states in the medals received for excellence; but nevertheless its relative rank in the Union as a fruit-producing state is still low.
In a period of 30 years (1869–1898) there were, according to the state Board of Agriculture, four seasons whose crops could reasonably be classed as failures, three more as “short,” one as fair, eighteen as good, and four as great. Compared with adjoining states—Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, Kansas, Missouri—none shows a greater, if indeed any shows so great an average value per acre in the yield of Indian corn, wheat, oats, barley and rye; and this despite the assumed handicap of the western half of the state. In fact the yield of this section relatively to cultivated acreage is normally fully equal to that of the eastern section; a result quite consistent with the scientifically proven fertility of semi-arid lands. The real handicap of the western counties would be shown in comparing aggregate yields per given area; for much land is normally inarable. Alfalfa, stock raising and dairying, afforestation, “dry-farming” and irrigation are, however, proving that the West can maintain prosperity by not relying upon ordinary agriculture. Alfalfa is not easily started, however, on the uplands of the extreme western part of the state; and dry-farming (the Campbell dust-mulch system) has the expensiveness in labour of intensive cultivation. The above-mentioned delusion that climate is changing and adapting itself to agriculture, thus relieving the farmer of accommodating his methods to the climate, has considerably handicapped him in progress. Systematic experiments in dry-farming throughout the Great Plains were provided for on a great scale by Congress in 1906. By attention to crop rotation, soil physics and world-wide search for plants adapted to the Great Plains (such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture has long been conducting), a very great deal can be accomplished—no one can say how much; but certainly the Western must long remain at a great disadvantage in comparison with the Eastern portion of the state as regards the growth of cereals.
Irrigation.—Water for the western part of the state is a resource of primary importance, and irrigation therewith a fundamental problem. Very generally, especially in the butte regions, the country lends itself to the impounding of surface water. The lakes are of great importance for the stock ranges of the sand-hills. It is commonly believed that of underground water, and generally of artesian water, even the driest counties have an abundance. This is great exaggeration. Though both in central and western Nebraska there are strata that generally yield a considerable flow, the supply is usually limited and the expense is great. Up to 1906 dependence was mainly upon the streams, which it is estimated might furnish 3 or 4 million acre-feet—enough to irrigate between 10 and 15%
of the arid section—were all the water available, and the land- ↑ Data of the State Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics, which are lower than those of the state Board of Agriculture, and (in census years) the Federal Census. The yearly average given by the Board of Agriculture for 1895–1904 is 219,196,000 bushels. The statistics for 1906 and 1907 are taken from the Year-books of the Department of Agriculture.
