This is not too high praise for Minnesota, when we find the great State of Ohio for the last six years failing to raise sufficient wheat for her own consumption, while Minnesota with but 2,232,988 acres under wheat, has, after bountifully supplying her own population, exported in 1877 over fifteen million of bushels.
The important position which Minnesota is destined, in the near future, to assume as a great contributor to the supply of the most important article of food used by the human family, is well put forward by Mr. Pusey in the paper we have already quoted from. He says:
"But a more practical as well as serious aspect of the subject pertains to those social problems connected with supplies of bread. The grave significance of the question involved is not susceptible of concealment, when the fact is considered, that while the consumption of wheat, as the choice food of the human race, is rapidly extending, the capacity of wheat-growing regions for its production is rapidly diminishing."
We will now give some extracts from the report of the late J. B. Philips, Commissioner of Statistics. We select from his report with great satisfaction, because he has been very careful to make his calculations rather under than over the truth.
We find the following under the head of
WHEAT, 1875.
The number of bushels of wheat gathered and threshed, according to the returns reported to the Commissioner for the year 1875, was 28,769,736; but there were 77,032 acres unreported, which at 17-1/2 bushels per acre, (the general average,) would make a total of 30,079,300 bushels.
The number of acres reported as cultivated in wheat for 1875 was 1,764,109.
Illinois, with her large cultivated area, has until recently been the largest wheat-raising State. In 1860 she produced 23,837,023 bushels, and in 1870 30,128,405 bushels.
"In 1871," says one of her statisticians, "the United States produced 235,884,700 bushels of wheat, of which 27,115,000 are assigned to Illinois, or about 700,000 bushels more than any other State."