THE STEAM PLOW AT WORK ON A PRAIRIE FARM
From a photograph
Grain exports decrease
For many years this country grew much more wheat than we needed, and we shipped great quantities to Europe. But each year our growing population needs more food, and our exports of this grain decrease steadily. Even now our farms grow but little more of this grain than is needed at home, and the time is almost at hand when we shall no longer send any of it abroad.
Texas and Iowa lead
230. Cattle Raising and Meat Packing. Cattle raising, like wheat farming, is principally an industry of the West. As late as 1850 the states which raised the most cattle lay along the Atlantic coast. But to-day Texas and Iowa are in the lead, and Kansas and Nebraska follow closely.
Cattle ranches of the West
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 area of plains from western Texas to Montana. This region grows fine grass and has become the great grazing country of the United States. Here vast herds of cattle still roam on large ranches and are cared for by cowboys.
Corn-fed cattle
East of the ranch country lies the corn belt, in which Illinois and Iowa are the leading states. Cattle fatten better on corn than on any other food, and the meat of corn-fed stock brings the best prices.