Commercial geography

Front matter

Hi i

(BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

Us NL sicch ie spy C7 CPLO

Introduction To Commercial Geography

CHAPTER PAGE i dS eer ata Te Se, eptiddl bo “e I ETN Pe fee aki ed) i. Hi REMIT ole LE 22 DISSE OINOUSTRIPS —. . » 5 + wie wleroe’ 2S. fo MMe kg ty yg es hello eva 50 ee as eitee PoE, BE ech je steer “7G VI. THE PRINCIPLES OF COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY ... . 92 PART IT

COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES

VII. PHysIcCAL FEATURES OF THE UNITED STATES. ... . III eter CANT PRODUCTS OF THE UNITED STATES. .. . ... £§F20 IX. ANIMAL INDUSTRIES OF THE UNITED STATES. . . . . I45 X. MINERAL INDUSTRIES OF THE UNITED STATES .. . ..._ 160 Mla Wy ATER RESOURCES OF THE UNITED.STATES ... . . . 180 SeaeerHe CONCENTRATION OF INDUSTRIES .... .:. . 202 SumemieeNITERS OF GENERAL INDUSTRY . .... .. .. + 217 MEG TATION (0 kw ee ew 229 ES OS Sr 7. Ly SeeeeacsOVERNMENT AND COMMERCE... .. . + « - . 256 | XVII. FOREIGN COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES. . . . . 271 vii vill

PAR Dart

COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY OF OTHER COUNTRIES

CHAPTER

XVITI.

XIX, AX, XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVIT.

XXVIII.

INDEX .

Tue GERMAN EMPIRE AND THE NortH SEA COovun- TRIES .

ASIA

AFRICA .

LATIN AMERICA .

ILLUSTRATIONS, DIAGRAMS, AND MAPS IN BLACK AND WHITE

PAGE Plowing for wheat in Manitoba . : 2 Annual production of wheat, United Beate: foe toes Z Spring wheat grown at Sitka, Alaska : 4 Movement of the center of wheat production, United States 5 Wheat harvest in Manitoba 6 Wheat in the shock on the prairies 7 Threshing on the prairies . : 8 DEECEeeSICRDOUS 5... ke kw ee ee es wh aw we IO Mumeeermtevatorsinthe Northwest .......... +... . UI Sememerouuction and price, United States... ......2.2.~. «13 EEC RCROG sc cs 5, es kt el le wk te ee EA Sueetre wheat production... 1. - ww Sk ee ee 6 Bwomormon or lands underwheat in Russia ............ #18 i)

Cotton bolls, unopened and opened . 2 Cotton fibers, attached to seed . : 2 Map of cotton production, United States . 2 @eeermemee Of Cotton grown in each state. . . ....:...:.-, 2

> WwW

World’s average cotton production, 1903-1907 . Mill supply of cotton by countries contributing Areas reporting sea-island cotton, 1909 .

COON Am

Pam DICKIE . . . se a OAR pe Ns Nel dn x at a a) Fulton bag and cotton mills, Atlanta nt rence et OC RAR eA Re hee fa Cotton levee, New Orleans .. . Ns eh? ss ay aiicben hited Air a ade rain ade 4 Spinning room of Lancashire cotton Sue MEMS Ret etia a ay or Si ae Consumption of cotton by manufacturing countries . . . ..... . 34 Secon procuction, United States, 1790-I909 =. ww ww we ee ww 35 Relative importance of six textile fibers .. . “ff set ig ee boars ee? Cattle other than milch cows, United States, eeeeiucd ly eho tae wae eo Roping calves for branding on the western plains ......... 42 Me NIGAPO . lw te tt lw we AG World’s cattle, including dairy cows. . . See a a Sar Mat ear eo ates Sources of the milk supply of New York City . Say ey CA es te ea Sur ane milkisipply of Boston: . . . . . . . 2. s+ + « ¢ + « 52

Na a a aes er a er ee | ix xX COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY

Bacteriological laboratory, State Dairy School, Ames, Iowa Decrease in death rate of children, District of Columbia Furnaces near Pittsburg Distribution of iron deposits, United Sikes Duluth, Mesaba, and Northern ore docks Ore unloader at work, Buffalo . ae Sources, routes, and destination of Lake Supe iron ores Birmingham iron district, Alabama .

Ore boat below the “ Soo,” returning empty Plant of Lackawanna Steel Company, Buffalo Bessemer converter in action .

Open hearth mill, Lackawanna Steel ARS, Iron and steel products of leading states in 1905 Production of iron ore, pig iron, and steel, United States Truesdale coal breaker, Scranton, Pennsylvania . ‘ Delaware and Hudson coal storage, Delanson, New Mate . Coal barges at Pittsburg Coal fields of Great Britain .

Production of coal, United Sintea ana 1907 . Distribution of population, United States, 1790 Distribution of population, United States, 1850 . Distribution of population, United States, 1900 Density of population, United States, 1g1o . Westward migration of centers of population, etc. . Population in agricultural pursuits, United States Hand and machine labor compared .

Percentage of improved land, United States Relief and drainage of eastern United States . p Prairie and woodland, original distribution in Illinois Distribution of chief agricultural products, United States Annual production of corn, United States Rice production, United States, 1870 .

Rice production, United States, 1904-1908 . Harvesting rice, Louisiana Date palms, Tempe, Arizona Apple production, United States, fas Digging potatoes near Greeley, Colorado Potato cellar near Greeley, Colorado Production of cane sugar, United States . Production of beet sugar, United States . : Sugar factory; sugar beets at Blissfield, Mithiean :

ea bush, Summerville, South Carolina : Tea factory, Summerville, South Carolina

PAGE

ILLUSTRATIONS, DIAGRAMS, AND MAPS

Annual production of tobacco, United States .

Harvesting alfalfa, Port Conway, Virginia

Flax at harvest time, Pigeon, Minnesota, 1909

Hemp at harvest time, Lexington, Kentucky, 1907 .

Distribution of forests in the United States

Wasteful logging, Tyler County, Texas é

Relative lumber production in ten states, 1880, 1907

Lumber cut by states in 1907

Average annual number of sheep, United States, oe a

Average annual number of swine, United States, 1899-1908

States and provinces prohibiting export of game, 1905

Principal fishing grounds of the Atlantic coast region

Salmon waters of Pacific coast region .

Oyster bed near Brunswick, Georgia

Gloucester harbor and fishing vessels . , :

Average annual number of horses on farms ai ranges, United Se tae 1899-1908 ¥

Number of horses, all countries

Decline of New York and Pennsylvania ol focah anit

Annual production of petroleum, United States, 1859-1907

Salt works near Ithaca, New York .

Portland cement plants, United States ae

Portland and natural cement production, United States, ack nes

Production of gold; the world and principal countries, 1800-1906 .

Mean annual rainfall in the United States ‘

Humid, semiarid, and arid regions of the United States ‘

Diagram illustrating the principle of the artesian well fe Sayre

Death rates from typhoid fever in seventy-three cities, grouped according to sources of drinking water . Ene Ad

Mohawk and Hudson cities and towns in fehtion to riasah River i ICGis

Basins affording water supply for New York City ;

Zones of natural and manufactured ice in the United States

Hydraulic laboratory of Cornell University

Falls of the Passaic River, Paterson, New Jersey

Transmission lines, Niagara Falls Power Company

Hydroelectric plant, Puyallup River, Washington :

Diversion dam, Truckee-Carson irrigation project, Nevada

Location of chief government irrigation projects .

‘Swamp and overflowed lands east of the Rocky Mountains

Traction ditching machine, experimental farm, Cornell University

Gauging river flow, West Carson River, California .

Distribution of cotton manufacture, United States .

Distribution of slaughtering and meat packing, United States

Xi

Xll COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY

Operatives in knitting mill, Amsterdam, New York

Centers of collars, cuffs, and knit goods in eastern New York Preparation of skins, Gloversville, New York .

Cutting room of glove factory, Gloversville, New York . Distribution of manufacture of boots and shoes, United States

Distribution of manufacture of agricultural implements, United States .

New York harbor and its approaches .

onicaro and wicmity e256 P

Philadelphia and Baltimore, with binteHanal

The Mauretania in New York bay

Railway net of the United States Ag Nese Increase in railway mileage, United States, ies eon Principal routes of interior navigation, United States . The Barge-Canal route of New York

Cross sections of well-known canals

Electric railways about Cleveland, Ohio .

Electric (interurban) railways of Indiana

Two animals drawing one bale of cotton on a bad feud : Two horses drawing twelve bales of cotton on a good road Gross tonnage of vessels owned in the United States . Steamships in the locks at the “ Soo” : Gross tonnage of vessels, United States, 1889 saa rasa Principal transportation routes of the world

Interior of Southern Pacific steel postal car

Rural free-delivery carrier and mail wagon .

Increase in rural free-delivery routes, 1897-1909 Wireless-telegraph station, Glace Bay, Nova Scotia Standard-time belts in the United States .

The nonmagnetic ship, Carnegie . ; Agricultural experiment stations, United States d

Samples of grain, Alaska experiment station ay Growth of foreign commerce, United States, 1860-1909 . New Orleans and Mississippi delta .

Galveston and its harbor .

Ports of Puget Sound region :

Foreign trade of Cuba for fiscal year, 168% 1909 .

San Francisco and San Francisco Bay ;

Commerce of United States, Germany, and the United Kingdowt Exports of United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom Imports of United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom Douglas firs, British Columbia . 3

Salmon catch, Fraser River, British Cetus

Canada; isotherms for the year

ILLUSTRATIONS, DIAGRAMS, AND MAPS xiii

: PAGE I s! coeds) Yoh rege fe tees 4h ie id ed a) 8 2205 Montreal harbor .... ‘ Syne | atiN te Sey are tag B ZOO Canadian Pacific Railway station eh see Remcntats Atti. ONT tee ee? Sealing fleet, Victoria harbor, British Columbia. . . . . .... . 298 Winnipeg, looking west along Portage Avenue ........ .. 300 Snow sheds, Selkirk Mountains . . . BME rahe, ts) Jala s ASOL Eddystone lighthouse, English Chepeke PRR ulaek toate Wit x “SE “304 ees ancasnire cotton mill. . 2. ke we ww 307 Seeman eancashire cotton mill ... ..« «15 6 2 see ee ye (308 English centers of cotton and woolen manufacture ...... . . 309 Landing stage, Liverpool ..... Se ie ete cope ite apie ert. BEI eemeeussstan Tallways, ports,and sea routes .... .... +s... 313 Sunes map OL the Scottish Lowlands. . ... . . 2. we ew fe B15 mummemanearoducing areas of France. . .-. . . - . 2s 8 se (e323 Lyons, showing junction of Rhéne and Sajne ....... 2.2.2. 32 Railways, sea routes, and industrial centers of France ..... . . 326 EMOwa OF PTANCE oo kw eh ie 8 G28 Marseilles and harbor... . Pep STE” Ea bis phot 1-330 Exchange and wharves of ete Bre ie Wipe eed. Toes: Whe SF! aie moun of the Seine... 6008 we ee ww 332 ne DatOr Of ANIWETP . . - 0, 2 o) ioe adie ew eee 333 Production of rye, all countries, average, 1903-1907 . . . . ... + 337 ener potdioes, all countries . .. . - we. . ee wee 8 ee 338 Dene Or Central Furope 4) 4. 6 ee 339 Seems Dect super, all countries =. 5 6k ew ee 40 Production of beet and cane sugar weal PR ce ek sAE Harbor of Hamburg .... DV Set seas ese PHS Water routes and commercial centers of ae Sen aha geteet Gene.) ati 344 Harbor of Rotterdam .. . ‘sou ea) LO a aires Dnt Wi oa MOR Pd Harbor and fish market of ban ieee ert kivered) |.) baat si gees ts 4 O90 Chief railways and certain industries of Siveden ba teeth faery Sheree se TS5E Sumemeumeana vincyards, Lake Geneva . . . . 2 2 slice ties © 354 munis Or ot. Gothard Railway. . . 6). ion See oe 355 Semen woutes, centers, and industries of Italy . . . .. 2.2.4. ws » ~ 356 Seeeerreriiance to Simplon Tunnel, . , 030.0. sf. ee ee 357 none nmalii, ltaly) . 4. 6 8b inf ae patil a le ee 358 Denne wow silk, all countries *-. s 5 wg we ee et a 359 Genoaandits harbor... . . , Bibs Send S. esee ee, Ba) Beha OC

Chief routes, centers, and fet neice of Sais Retief at, wey <7 302 IE tre ah ee at gat Me ita it ils lob cate eitice meta 304 Wharves at Oporto... . 1 BAe, TESTE SES 1k MO nS) nL Se reg 101% Wharf and shipping of hneas Meee A Sethe fx earls i % cm 300

RA OAS Wm ys Fj eg iw eS we a» 2987

X1V COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY

Water routes and industrial centers of Austria-Hungary Harbor of Trieste :

The Danube Canal, Vienna .

Budapest .

Harbor of Fiume . ' sae Principal routes, centers, evil ea eeids of Rusa Flax fiber; production, 1903-1907

Flaxseed; production, 1905-1907

Harbor of Odessa

Smyrna and its harbor . / Routes and commercial centers of vant eneree Nee Bombay harbor with mail boat arriving

Railways, irrigation canals, and agricultural srodiins of Thies

Harbor of Calcutta .

Singapore, Collyer Quay .

Eastern Asia

Harbor of alt ecie : E Vladivostok, — harbor and terminus an een Rainey Annual rainfall of Australia . .

Railways and ocean routes of Heelers)

Number of sheep, all countries

Harbor of Sydney

Nile dam at Assuan . :

Port Said and the entrance to the Bee one

- Sorting diamond gravels, Kimberley

Building of Pan-American Union, Washington, District af Coniiniee World’s average annual production of coffee, 1904-1905 to 1908—19¢9

Coffee and rubber regions of South America .

Exports of Brazil, 1909

Imports of Brazil, 1909 4 et! oe RO Rainfall, railways, and wheat region of Argentina Exports of Argentina, 1908 .

Imports of Argentina, 1908 .

Distribution of population in South Aled

Exports of Latin America, 1909

Imports of Latin America, 1909

Drying coffee, Costa Rica ¢ Products of Mexico, Central pare at West Tedies ; Products of Mexico in an average year

Modern shipping in the harbor of Venice feo OF COLORED MAPS

PAGE Mets SS kt eet ee wie eltees « Lrontispiece RereeriaeeOr THE UNITED STATES . : 5. 2... 2... © 82 PHYSIOGRAPHIC REGIONS OF THE UNITED STATES . ...... . 116 PETROLEUM AND NATURAL-GAS FIELDS IN THE UNITED STATES . . 160 CHIEF SUBMARINE CABLES OF THE WORLD... ....- +... 252 PROGRESS OF GEOLOGIC SURVEYS IN THE UNITED STATES TO I909 . 258 HYDROGRAPHIC SURVEYS OF THE COASTS OF THE WORLD, 1904 . . 260 RiGHTHOUSE MAP OF THE CHESAPEAKE REGION. ....... . 262 DINEMUAIGNETIC DECLINATION ~. .-. . 1... « » s/s « « » © 264 SCANDIA 00606. 8 ee ele ee et ah we ee 6290 SUNSHINE IN SUMMER MONTHS EN CANADA ... . «1... 2 ees 292 TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAY SYSTEMS OF CANADA ..... . . 302 TERRITORIES OF GREAT BRITAIN, UNITED STATES, AND GERMANY . 318 REMC gc. fy sw a wt wet thw Sew 8 AIG INTERCONTINENTAL RAILWAY, NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA... . 422 ROUTES AND CENTERS OF ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN COMMERCE . . 440 VENETIAN AND HANSEATIC ROUTES AND CENTERS OF TRADE .. . 444°

XV

¥ il . a -_ fae | eal ‘ % £ R<Se " b Carns ee y 4 wd aes i ~ 7 . ‘ » f 2 . t 7 ‘ s . ae | >} . . ‘, ks (rig ay ; , 7 4 i - F ‘ +f *

‘ ' : ‘ } {= ¢ ; } - ¢ j iy SB : 5 e ie hs “Th Aaee rit : i aa 4 ai ee ko eee ‘brs eer ee OB; A SEMRS St SER ATES . | Bes Sa mowmvVeERCIAL GEOGRAPHY

Pant |. INTRODUCTION

(SR 8 28 ace Looe WHEAT

If one should follow a handful of wheat from the yellow field, _ by wagon and freight car or ship, to the flouring mill, the provision merchant, the bake oven, and the loaf of bread, he would understand one of the chief themes and acquire many of the principles of commercial geography. Food is the first need of man, and wheat, which has been called. the “ international grain,” is perhaps the most important of foods. We therefore study wheat for itself and for its general illustration of the laws of production and exchange. go

1. History of wheat. Wheat, like other cereals, belongs to the order of grasses. It has been modified from some wild grass, but the time when this improvement took place is beyond the memory of man, and the wheat plant as we know it has never been found growing in a wild state. Some scholars think it had its beginning in western Asia and spread eastward to China and westward to Egypt and the countries of Europe. The Swiss lake dwellers raised wheat before the days of written history, and it grew in the valley of the Nile from ancient times to the classic days when “corn”’ ships sailed from Alexandria to Rome. Wheat growing has now spread over Europe wherever the climate permits, and the grain was brought in the sixteenth century to North America. As new lands have

I been subdued by civilized man, wheat has moved into the temperate regions of the southern hemisphere and is now an important crop in South America, South Africa, and Australia. The wheat map of the world (fig. 12) shows two irregular belts of wheat countries in the temperate latitudes on both sides of the equator.

2. Varieties of wheat. In the earliest times all wheats may have been alike, but differences of soil, climate, and culture tend to make kinds of wheat with distinct qualities, each breeding true for a long period. Thus there are red and white, bearded and bald, winter and spring wheats. After wheat became’ very

Fic. 1. Plowing for wheat in Manitoba important, men began to breed varieties by crossing good sorts in the hope of producing something better. Wheats were better if they were suited to a wider range of climate, if they gave larger yield, could resist disease and pests, or had higher value for food.

In Germany new varieties of beet have increased the amount of sugar that can be obtained from a field. In California, Luther Burbank has bred remarkable fruits and flowers. In the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station and other similar stations new wheats are raised and samples of seed sent out to farmers for testing. The Canadian government has a farm at Ottawa, on which special effort is made to breed wheats that will mature in a short season, in order to extend the Canadian wheat belt as far north as possible. The Department of Agriculture at Washington sends “agricultural explorers” to all lands to seek new and useful plants. They send home wheats that thrive and yield well in lands of small rainfall in the Cordilleran region.

3. Climates and soils suited to wheat. This grain does not thrive in very hot or very cold regions. It needs a cool and moist period for germination and early growth, but it matures best in bright and comparatively dry weather. We can thus

NITED STATES 1

MILLION BUSHELS

Fic. 2. Average annual production of wheat in millions of bushels, ' 1899-1908 understand why Egyptian and American wheats are bright, plump, and valuable. A cover of snow is favorable to a good crop of winter wheat, while an open winter, with exposure of the roots to severe changes, is harmful. The soil should be neither too light (sandy) nor too heavy (clayey), but loamy and well drained, with a surface suited to modern plowing and reaping machines. Such conditions are best met on the great plains of temperate latitudes, as on the prairies of the United States, the plains of Canada, the pampas of Argentina, and the plains of southern Russia. Wheat requires warmer summers than rye, barley, or oats, and hence is not found as far from the equator as these grains. It does not need as much heat as Indian corn,

Fic. 3. Spring wheat grown at the United States Experiment Station, Sitka, Alaska, latitude 57 degrees and thus the center of the corn belt is further to the south than that of wheat.

In North America wheat reaches from southern Mexico to Alaska and to Fort, Simpson on the Mackenzie River (62 degrees), but the bulk of the crop lies between 35 degrees (Chattanooga, Memphis, Little Rock) and 55 degrees (central

Saskatchewan and Alberta). In the Old World wheat extends to Trondhjem, Norway, latitude 63 degrees, and in Russia to 60 or 62 degrees. On the south it crosses the Mediterranean to Algiers, about 36 degrees. In India wheat grows south of the tropic of Cancer to about 21 degrees. The high slopes and plateaus of India carry wheat in that country almost as far south as the city of Mexico, and give this cereal a latitude range of over 40 degrees in Eurasia.

The traveler need not fail to find a ripened field of wheat in any month of the year. He may start in November in South Africa, proceed in December and January to Australia, cross the sea to India in February and March, and go on to Egypt in March or April. In May he can visit Algiers, in June Italy and Spain, in July and August central Europe, and in September and October he will discover the harvest in Scotland, Scandinavia, and Finland. Even in North America the harvest lasts from April, in Mexico, to August in eastern Canada.

4. Progress of wheat culture in North America. In early days wheat was raised only on the Atlantic seaboard, to supply the scattered colonists. After the Revolution, settlers pressed into western New York, and upon the completion of the Erie Canal the ‘‘ Genesee country ” became the wheat center of the United States. As the population grew to the westward, wheat fields covered more and more of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, and extended over the prairies of Illinois and southern Wisconsin. In 1880 wheat growing had passed across the Mississippi River as far as central Kansas and Nebraska, and occupied a narrow strip of Dakota along the Red River of the North. In 1900 the center of the wheat areas of the United States was in Iowa, seventy miles west of Des Moines, and North Dakota had become

Fic. 4. Movement of the center of wheat production in the United States, 1850-1909 an one of the greatest producers of wheat, ranking with Minnesota and Kansas as one of the three greatest in the Union. For many years also large crops have been raised in the three states of the Pacific coast.

Meantime the older states, like Pennsylvania and Ohio, still raise much wheat, and the center of the wheat lands moves to the northwest only because such vast crops are raised in that section of the country. As population grows, more land is required for pasture, forage, and garden crops, and the largest wheat-growing seeks new lands. For this reason many American farmers are passing into Canada, and there, with other immigrants, on the great plains of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and

Fic. 5. Wheat harvest in Manitoba

Alberta, they may develop the greatest wheat center of North America. The wheat crop of the United States in 1906 was 735,000,000 bushels. Forty years before, in 1866, the crop was 232,000,000 bushels. This increase was needed partly to feed our own greater population and partly for export to other nations, which, like England, can raise but a part of their own bread.

5. Wheat on the farm. In the earliest days the methods of the farmer were rude and simple. He dug the ground with a pointed stick or a mattock, sowed the wheat “ broadcast ”’ out of a sack, and covered it, by means of a harrow. He harvested it with a sickle and threshed it by the hoofs of beasts or with a flail, ‘These primitive ways had not been greatly improved by the middle of the last century, except by the introduction of the plow for tillage and the cradle for harvesting. Then threshing machines, run by the treading of a pair of horses, gave way to machines of 10 horse power, turning out 500 bushels in a day. Reaping machines came in, and four or five men followed each bout to bind the sheaves. Then followed “ self-binders,”’ and drills for sowing, by which a single team could sow several acres in a day, covering the seed to even depths in mellow soil.

As wheat spread across the prairies to the Great Plains and the valley of California, whole plantations were devoted to wheat, —

Fic. 6. Wheat in the shock on the prairies

“bonanza” farms of thousands of acres. Broad plains, free from stone, made yet larger machinery possible. Gang plows make swift work of turning the soil. The harrow that fits the soil for the seed may be 25 feet wide. The drill, drawn by four horses, is 12 feet wide. The harvester may cut a swath of 20, 30, or even 50 feet. In some cases the harvester is a thresher as well. In front of the machine the wheat is standing ; behind, it lies on the ground in sacks ready for market. “The enormous size of the machine; the team itself, —twenty large mules driven in two ranks, ten abreast ; the separator towering high above the standing grain; the loud hum of the monster as it sweeps over the plain; the cloud of dust floating away on the breeze; the broad swath and the sacks of grain gliding from its side and strewed along the way, made it, all in all, the most impressive piece of machinery I have ever seen at work.” !

Western wheat is not all raised and harvested on a giant scale, for there are many farms, even in such a state as Kansas, of not more than three hundred acres, on which the owner, with a few helpers and smaller machines, raises his crop. On great frontier farms wheat is raised every year on the same fields ; but this exhausts the soil, and in older regions rotation of crops must be practiced, fertilizer must be used, and wheat raised less frequently. In small fields in the East broadcast sowing and

Fic. 7. Threshing on the prairies the cradle are still in use, and on many small plots in parts of Italy and elsewhere in the older countries the soil is still prepared by hand and the grain is reaped with a sickle.

6. Flour milling. Wheat would form a nourishing food if threshed in the hand, winnowed with the breath, and ground without the aid of machinery. The wheat of modern times, however, forms food for nations through elaborate processes of manufacture by which a few skilled workers make it ready for the many. The story of the past shows a natural series of milling methods. In early days, as among rude peoples now, there was grinding by hand between two stones. The gristmill by the stream sends the grain between dressed millstones and ‘bolts’’ the flour, separating the middlings and the bran. The

1 Writer in United States Census of 1880.

great merchant mill, however, crushes the wheat between rollers of iron or porcelain, and sends it in fact through several series of rollers, with an intermediate sifting or winnowing between successive grindings. Thus the best flour and the most of it is made by effectively separating the inner parts of the grain from the outer shell or covering. Hence we have the roller-process flour in brands which are known throughout the United States, and indeed in all lands where wheat serves as food. In the older process the ‘‘middlings” were discarded, but now are utilized to make the strongest and the distinctly high-grade or “‘patent”’ flour.

7. Milling centers. In the Old World the highest fame and skill in the making of flour have been reached by Hungarian millers at Budapest, the capital of Hungary. On the Danube, at the head of the great plains of Hungary, this was a natural place of manufacture for wheat products. There the roller process was used before 1840, and thence carried to other lands. The municipality whose greatest industry is milling has built on the Danube quay a great elevator in order to exhibit modern methods of handling grain.

In the first half of the last century Rochester, at the lower falls of the Genesee River, became the chief seat of the flouring industry of the United States. The wheat lands of western New York surrounded it, the falls furnished ample power for the mills, and the Erie Canal, on its opening in 1825, gave the needful carriage to the markets of the East. -

Budapest sprang from a Roman camp, but the city of Minneapolis stands on ground where seventy years ago the Indian and the buffalo were roaming. In 1850 the few settlers sent their wheat three hundred miles to have it made into flour, but in that year a small feed and flour mill was built. In 1867 the town was made a city, and men who had grown rich in handling lumber were turning their attention to wheat. Both were products of the Northwest, and both found ready approach to Minneapolis. Arriving there, the power of the Mississippi River in the falls of St. Anthony was available for sawing and grinding. The first merchant flour mill was erected in 1854, and the

IO COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY bran was fed to the fishes of the river. After 1859 the industry grew, and the Hungarian processes were introduced in 1871. The Pillsbury mills are said to have enlarged their success by putting the keener American workmen to the use of the European methods. In 1901 the capacity of Minneapolis mills was 80,000 barrels per day, and one mill could turn out 15,000 barrels. Here again, on a larger scale than at Rochester, we have three essential things, — raw product, plentiful power, and ample transportation from the field or to the market by many lines of railway. Lumber and flour have created an industry in ae \