The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1904-11-24
The Wheat Belt VS.. Corn Belt.


A paper by Hon. Robert McCaull, reao
before the Decatur County Farmers
Institute.
1t has often been said and believe
truthfully that, "Wheat Bread is the
staff of Life" The people of every
country in the civilized world think
they could not have sufficient nourish.
ing food unless they had plenty Of
bread.
When l was a boy in Scotland, the
country where was born we thought
we could get along very well if we
could have plenty of oat meal porridge
potatoes and beef. In Ireland, the
principal food was stirabout and pota.
toes, principally potatoes. In the Is.
lands of the Ocean where the cannibals
had their homes, they lived on fish and
sea fowls. But when shipwrecked
mariner landed on their shores a feast
of human flesh was what delighted them
the most.
The Esquimaux lived on polar bears
and seals, but when you wanted to give
them rare treat, nothing pleased them
SO much to eat, as a good sized tallow
candle. l saw large number of them
at the Worlds Fair in 1898. They were
small of stature but big around, and
plainly showed that the bears and seals
furnished them their "staf of life" as
well as furnished them clothes.
Some will probably ask, what has all
this got to do with the subject assigned
to me, "Wheat Belt vs.. Corn Belt"
The people of the United States are
not satisfied to live on wheat and corn
bread, but have adopted new fad
During the past few years, what is
known as breakfast food has been used
quite extensively. 1t is advertised in
all the leading periodicals of the day,
1t is manufactured from poor, damaged
unsaleable wheat and most Of it is a
fraud but it sells and that is enough.
When first arrived in America near
ly So years ago the great wheat belt
extended from New York to Illinois.
Most every farmer raised wheat. The
center of the wheat belt was in the
Genesee Valley. From 20 to 80 bushels
per acre was the usual yield of wheat.
Soon the western country began to be
opened up and wheat was the principal
crop.
Thirty-six years ago, right here in
Decatur county l raised p bushel OF
good wheat to the acre, but soon the
chintz bugs came and destroyed our
wheat and other crops, so that we had
to quit raising wheat altogether. Iowa
is no longer a wheat state. The wheat
belt is now in the Mississippi Valley
and extends north to the Canadian line,
then along the Red River Valley of the
north for hundreds of miles. California,
Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Mon
tana are great producers Of wheat, as
well as Minnesota, the two Dakotas,
Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma, the
great wheat belt.
By invitation from my boys who are
in business in Minneapolis l went up
there to have few days fishing in the
Minnesota Lakes. When got tired Of
fishing and wanted to come home again,
my eldest son told me that he was go
going out to Aberdeen, s. D., to see how
the crops looked for he was interested
having two grain elevators in that
place. He wanted me to go with him
and see the great wheat fields of Da-
kota. never had been in Dakota, SO
went along.
4 After 800 mile trip in a Pullman
sleeper we arrived at Aberdeen. To
say that / was astonished to see such a
beautiful country with almost continu-
GUS wheat fields as far as the eye could
reach, was really delighted to see
such fields Of grain. had an idea that
the Dakotas were frontier states, partly
broke up, the balance wild land, full of
billiards. every winter. The James
River valley from Yorktown to Aber-
deem 200 miles long and rs miles wide
was nearly all a continuous grain field,
where millions of bushels of grain were
harvested every year. It was my first
sight Of the big wheat fields Of the wild