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For hay, tons. In the latter region a large part of the crop has the advantage of irrigation. In most of the North Central States hay is the second crop in respect to acreage and value. In the cotton States but little attention is given it, although there has been a significant increase in this section in recent years. (See Table.) The increase in the acreage of hay has been especially rapid since 1880, the area devoted to it having doubled between 1880 and 1900, the greatest part of this gain being made in the earlier of the two decades, corresponding to the period in which there was a decadence in wheat culture. prairie region was easily adaptable to the raising of this crop. Moreover, the increased attention given to cattle and horses, and the need of putting the soil under grass to improve its productivity in the older States, have tended to develop this crop. The principal variety of hay is timothy, its production being confined largely to the North Central and the North Atlantic States. But comparatively little of any other kind is grown in the latter division of States. Next in importance are wild salt and prairie grasses, which are produced in the region in which timothy is little grown-the more arid prairie region and westward. Clover ranks third in acreage, but is a long way removed. Its production is largest in the North Central States. In the Western division of States alfalfa is the most important hay. Two or more crops of this variety of hay are obtained annually, and alfalfa stands first in yield per acre. In the far West, especially California, large quantities of grain are cut green for hay. Millet and forage crops are grown in most parts of the country.

WHEAT. There are two other crops which greatly exceed each of the foregoing as money crops, wheat and cotton. The greater part of each of these crops is sold, particularly cotton. They represent also by far the most important exports, and hence are brought to the notice of the public eye in a degree almost out of proportion to their importance. Cotton is the great money crop of the Southern States, and wheat of the North Central and Western States. The United States wheat crop varies in amount from one-third to one-half that of Europe. Wheat can be successfully grown in every State of the Union. How ever, the competition of certain favored regions has limited its cultivation in others. A hardy crop and of quick growth, it is the principal crop in the far North, and also in the West, wherever

the climate is unseasonable for corn. The climate and soil are less favorable to its growth in the South. Wheat, more easily than most other crops, may be handled by machinery, and therefore by capitalistic methods. The existence of level prairie lands, unobstructed by stones or stumps, and purchasable at low figures in large quantities from railroad companies, or, as in California, from the extensive Spanish land grants, explains the rise of the bonanza wheat farms-the most typical of which are found in the valley of the Red River of the North and the Great Valley of California. On some of these farms wheat is cut and threshed in one operation by machines, propelled by steam. In the planting of the grain, also, the highest type of agricultural machinery is used. In some instances steam machinery plows, culti vates, and sows in one operation. These farms are being gradually broken up, and mixed farming is taking their place, as the soil becomes exhausted from the too great repetition of the one crop. During the period from 1870 to 1890 wheat cultivation developed in Argentina, India, and other regions, and these countries came into competition with the United States in the European market. In consequence of this fact there was a decrease in the price of wheat, and in turn in the cultivation of wheat over the greater part of the United States, During the decade 1880-90 there was a decrease in the aggregate wheat acreage of five and two-tenths per cent. But the development of wheat cultivation in the countries mentioned has not been so great since 1890, prices have improved, and wheat culture in the United States has revived, the area devoted to its cultivation having increased fifty-six and six-tenths per cent. in the decade 1890-1900. In the regions where the winters are rigorous, especially where the snowfall is not heavy enough to protect vegetation, as in the Red River Valley, or where the rainfall may be inadequate in the autumn, the wheat crop is sown in the spring. In 1901 a little over four-sevenths of the total wheat acreage was winter wheat. With the development of the Northwest, the raising of spring wheat is rapidly gaining upon winter wheat, having increased from about one-third of the total wheat acreage in 1901. Wheat benefited even more than corn from the improved machinery which came into use about 1850 and subsequently. This, together with the improvement of transportation which made it possible for the product of the interior to reach the European market, and together with

the adaptability of the prairie soils to wheat culture, resulted in a more rapid increase in the acreage devoted to it than was true of corn.

COTTON. While the value of the cotton crop is not so great as is that of wheat, the receipts from its sales and especially from its exportation are much greater. (See paragraph on Commerce.) There is no other field product which gives employment to so large a number of people. The total area devoted to cotton in the United States increased from 14,480,019 acres in the census year 1880, to 20,175,270 in 1890, and 24,275,101 acres in 1900, the production in bales for those years being respectively 5,755,359, 7,472,511, and 9,534,707. (For detailed tables and map see CorTON.) Through the reduction of the high prices prevailing after the war, the cultivation of cotton is being abandoned almost entirely in the border States. Its area of production is in the region southeast of the Appalachian Mountains, beginning in the north at the southern tier of counties in Virginia, and including over two-thirds of North Carolina and nearly all South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, then the region extending north in the Mississippi Valley, embracing western Tennessee, southern Arkansas, Indian Territory, Oklahoma, and the region southward to the Gulf. Florida and the coast plains of the States mentioned are not so favorable for its production as the region farther inland. In recent years there has been a remarkable development of cottongrowing in Texas, Indian Territory, and Oklahoma. Texas now yields twice the amount produced by any other State. Its production in that region, however, has suffered severely from the ravages of the boll-weevil. In 1900 43.80 per cent. of the crop was produced west of the Mississippi River. From the time of the introduction of the cotton gin to the time of the Civil War, the cultivation of cotton was one of the most rapidly developing industries of the United States, being favored by the high prices obtained for its products and the advantages which water transportation afforded in the South to place it upon the market. The most rapidly developing period was 1850-60, when the area devoted to cotton in the ten principal States increased 100 per cent. It was during this period that cotton first asserted its supremacy in the South. The area devoted to corn increased only 17 per cent. in the same period. The construction of railroads and the development of corn-raising in the North Central States made possible the importation of that product, and the cotton-grower believed it more profitable to import his corn and devote his soil to cotton. While corn was well in advance of cotton in acreage at the outbreak of the Civil War, the still higher prices of cotton prevailing after the war turned attention more than ever to it, and subsequent to 1870 the importation of corn became general and the acreage of its cultivation in the cotton States fell below the acreage of cotton. A number of other factors that assisted in strengthening the domination of cotton were operative after the war. left Southern planters without capital. In order to secure supplies of food, farm equipments, etc., of the merchant, the farmer was obliged to place his land and his crop under mortgage to the merchant. Cotton was a cash crop, being easily marketed, and was the most acceptable to the merchant, who insisted upon a large production

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of it in order to make himself safe in case of a partial crop product. Nor did the farmer on his part care to take the risk of experimenting with new or mixed systems of farming. This condition became greatly emphasized by the presence of a large ex-slave population. The negro preferred to become a tenant-cultivator, and as such has become the special prey of the crop-mortgage system. His obligations and his inclinations both tended to restrict him to cotton. Thus, although the price of cotton fell between 1875 and 1900 more than the price of any other crop, rendering its production unprofitable, the economic system which had fastened itself upon the South made it impossible to check cotton cultivation. A vigorously conducted agitation, participated in by the Cotton Trust and by the planters themselves, to reduce the cotton-growing area, had but little result. The utilization of the cotton seed has tended in a measure to offset the consequences of the disastrous fall in the price of the fibre. In 1899 the cotton-seed product amounted to 4,566,100 tons, valued at $46,950,575. The development of manufacturing in the South has tended to enlarge the local markets for all farm products. In some sections this demand for a greater diversity of crops has tended to diminish the dependence upon cotton and the mortgageholder. But in the greater part of the cotton area proper the tyranny of cotton has scarcely been weakened.

OATS. The only other crop which is grown on a scale comparable with the foregoing crops is oats. The acreage of oats is indeed greater than that of cotton, but the value is much less. It belongs in the group with corn and hay in that it is produced almost wholly for consumption on the farm. More hardy than corn, it is grown as a stock-food substitute for it in the States where corn does not grow well, namely the northern tier of States. In New York, Wisconsin, and some other commonwealths, oats has the largest area of any cereal. In a number of other States it ranks second, including the two largest oatsgrowing States, Illinois and Iowa, in each of which oats is twice as extensively grown as is wheat. The greatest growth of the industry occurred in the decade 1880-90, when the acreage increased from 16,144,393 to 28,320,677. This increase was associated with the development of the Northern States and the decline of wheat in the region already under cultivation. In New England, the Southern States, and the Far West the crop did not figure prominently. The United States produces less than two-thirds the oats products of the world.

RICE. Although rice was introduced as early as 1700 and has been grown ever since, it was not until near the year 1900 that its cultivation began to assume large proportions. For 150 years its cultivation was confined mainly to the delta lands and tidal rivers of the Carolinas and Georgia, where it was cultivated by the aid of irrigation. It was for a long time the only crop in the United States to which irrigation was applied. South Carolina ranked first in its production until 1880. A new epoch in rice cultivation began in 1897-98, when it was successfully grown by the aid of irrigation in the coastal prairie lands of southwestern Louisiana. The cultivation of rice in that region developed with remarkable rapidity and the production of the coun