decrease

more food, and our exports of this grain decrease steadily. Grain Even now our farms grow but little more of this grain exports than is needed at home, and the time is almost at hand when we shall no longer send any of it abroad.

230. Cattle Raising and Meat Packing. Cattle raising, like wheat farming, is princi

From a photograph

and

pally an industry of the West. As late as 1850 the states which raised the most cattle lay along the Atlantic Texas coast. But to-day Texas and Iowa are in the lead, and Iowa Kansas and Nebraska follow closely.

lead

As the eastern states became peopled more densely, cattle grazing was forced west. The cattle pastures were broken up into fields. The prairies of Illinois and Iowa became a vast cornfield. Eastern Kansas and Nebraska were turned into corn and wheat farms. Always the cattle had to give way to the grain. At last the farmers came to a strip of country where the rainfall was not enough to make grain growing profitable. This comparatively narrow strip stretches north in an irregular Cattle area of plains from western Texas to Montana. This ranches region grows fine grass and has become the great grazing West country of the United States. Here vast herds of cattle still roam on large ranches and are cared for by cowboys. East of the ranch country lies the corn belt, in which Illinois and Iowa are the leading states. Cattle fatten

of the

better on corn than on any other food, and the meat of Corn-fed corn-fed stock brings the best prices.

cattle

The corn states have therefore taken up the raising and fattening of cattle on a tremendous scale. When western cattle leave the ranch they are generally not very heavy. Thousands of carloads are shipped into the corn country each year, there to be fattened before going to the packing houses.

The Department of Agriculture, at Washington, is now taking great pains to induce the boys, especially of the South, to make experiments in corn raising. Some wonderful results have been produced, and the

South is in a fair way to take to the raising of corn.
The largest meat-packing plants are located in the corn

belt at Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha, and other cities. To-day meat packing is the greatest business of Chicago and many other large cities. A generation ago it had Invention scarcely begun. But the packers learned to can meat, of

to use ice for cold storage, and, most important of all, refrigerthe refrigerator car was invented.

By this last discovery it became possible to ship meat almost everywhere. Where before the packers had to sell their goods at home, now they have the world as a market. A steer raised on the western prairies may now be fattened for market in Illinois, slaughtered in Chicago, and served in New York, or sent to England or even to the Orient.

MINES, MINING, AND MANUFACTURES

ator cars

Great

231. Coal and Iron. Next to the great farm crops, coal and iron are the most valuable products of our value country. The coal that is mined in one year is worth of coal five times as much as the gold and silver combined. Our and iron iron mines yield as much wealth in one year as the gold mines do in three. Gold and silver are luxuries without which we could get along, but our great factories, railroads, and steamship lines could not exist without an abundance of iron and coal.

A hundred years ago there was almost no coal mined in this country. Now we use more of it than any other land, and almost a million men make a living by mining it.

coal in

At first most of the coal produced was the hard anthracite of eastern Pennsylvania. But this hard coal is Hard found only in one small section of Pennsylvania, whereas Penngreat beds of soft coal stretch from Pennsylvania west sylvania to Washington. At present there is far more soft coal

used than anthracite. Pennsylvania is the leading state in the production of both hard and soft coal, but West Virginia, Illinois, and Ohio are also great coal states. Factories Generally, where there are productive coal mines, factories have been built, because most of them need a great deal of coal for fuel.

need coal

Iron was first worked by the colonists in the bogs of New England. Iron mining, however, did not become

iron-ore deposits

in the world

Carried

to the

smelters

From a photograph

a great industry until the latter part of the last century. In that period the great iron "ranges" of Lake Superior were opened up. These are the largest deposits of iron ore in the world.

Most of the ore lies in Minnesota. Here, far up in the northern woods, thousands of men are blasting or digging out the red and rusty ore. Huge steam shovels load a car in a few minutes, and in a short while a trainload of ore is on its way to Duluth or Superior. From there

it is carried by steamer east, most likely to one of the Ohio towns on Lake Erie. Here much of the ore is again loaded into cars and hauled to the Pittsburgh region, there to be smelted.

Coal and

iron

dustries

Pittsburgh has become the greatest iron and steel center of America. Enormous quantities of coal are mined here and used for smelting the iron ore that is shipped in. More people of western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio make a living by mining coal and making support steel and iron than anywhere else in America. Great great inblast furnaces melt the iron ore. Steel works turn out huge quantities of rail and sheet steel. Foundries make cast-iron products of all kinds. Vast shops are busily engaged in producing locomotives and machines of endless variety. Everywhere in this region are smoking chimneys and busy industrial plants, all supported by coal and iron. The southern states, Alabama, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee, also contain rich stores of coal and iron. These resources were little used during slavery days. Now, however, the southern states are digging coal for use in their great factories and cotton mills, or sending it abroad. Birmingham, Alabama, is one of the great coal and iron centers of the United States.

SUGGESTIONS INTENDED TO HELP THE PUPIL

The Leading Facts. 1. The toilers in forest, mine, and factory contributed to the development of our land. 2. Cotton is grown in all the southern states and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 3. A valuable oil is made from the cotton seed. 4. The climate west of the Mississippi best suited to the raising of wheat. 5. The work of cultivating and harvesting is done by machines. 6. Wheat is sent to the flour mills, the largest of which are in Minneapolis. 7. Exports of wheat decreasing. 8. Texas and Iowa the leading cattle-raising states. 9. Cattle