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United States. Within this belt the production of live stock has also become a basic factor in agriculture.

4. North of the forty-third parallel, extending westward from the Great Lakes to the eastern boundary of Montana and Wyoming, lies the spring-wheat belt.

5. The states and territories usually known as the Rocky Mountain states and territories, comprising Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, are devoted to the production of wool and live stock as fundamental industries.

6. The Pacific Coast states of Washington, Oregon, and California are still primarily agricultural. Wheat, barley, live stock, timber, and fruits constitute the sources of their prosperity. This geographical grouping of agricultural activities lies at the basis of the internal commerce of the United States.

Under the present state of agricultural development no section of the country has reached such a degree of self-sufficiency as to be independent of other sections, both for its means of subsistence and its materials of manufacture. Consequently the development of large trade centers is dependent upon the accumulation of staples and their distribution to various consuming uses throughout the country and the rest of the world. Manufactures and merchandise contribute a comparatively minor portion of the total tonnage carried on the railroads of the country. The dividend-earning freight of western railroads, for example, is found chiefly in the volume of grain and cattle shipments. The southern railroads rely largely on cotton, lumber, fruits, and vegetables for their prosperity. Merchandise and manufactures are rather of the nature of a supplementary freight-earning business.

2. Agricultural Production in 19061

Preliminary crop estimates, subject to modification, must be used in the following review of the year's farm production, in advance of the final estimates of the department, to be made a

1 From the report of Honorable James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, for the year 1906.

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