Farming and Stock The staple products of Missouri are wheat, oats, Indian corn and rye, but in the southern portions of the State cotton, hemp and flax are raised to some extent. Thirty bushels of wheat to the acre is an average yield but is often far ex ceeded. The flour from Missouri wheat is in great demand in foreign as well as home mar kets, and is regarded as of a high quality. All kinds of grass which favor stock raising grow luxuriantly, such as blue grass, timothy, red top and red and white clover. The raising of pork is a large industry, due to the cheapness of feed. All kinds of fruits are successfully cultivated, not only the more hardy fruits, such as the apple, pear, plum and cherry, but those which require a softer climate, such as apricots and many varieties of grapes. Apples and peaches grow well in all parts of the State. In the southern portion of the State, particu larly in the southwest, are grown many vari eties of grapes. In the southern counties of Missouri sheep raising has been carried on at a profit, the mild climate, the quality of grass and the abundance of good water being especially favorable here to this particular branch of stock raising. There are in Mis souri 24,581,186 acres of improved land. The land surface of the State is approximately 43, 985,280 acres. Much of the unimproved land is in forests. The value of farms, including land and improvements, not buildings, as esti mated by the Census Bureau is $1,441,529,000; the value of the buildings, $268,976,000; of the implements and machinery, $50,769,000, and of livestock, $160,540,000. There are on farms throughout the State 1,040,000 horses, 2,000,000 mules, asses and burros, 2,692,000 milk cows and other cattle, 1,466,000 sheep and 4,708,000 swine. Missouri ranks high among the corn producing States of the Union. No State in the Union raises as many mules. The annual production of the State in cereals, as shown in the 1915yearbook of the State Board of Agri culture, for the year of 1914 was: Corn, 175, 158,072 bushels; wheat, 36,933,501 bushels; oats, 18,534,533 bushels•, rye, 116,560 bushels; flax, 61,467 bushels; buckwheat, 14,406 bushels; barley, 9,270 bushels. The hay yield for the year was 1,877,402 tons of tame hay and 121,404 tons of prairie hay. Other products were: Broom corn, 591,175 pounds; cotton, 26,847,360 pounds; potatoes, 2,500,000 bushels; tobacco, 2,726,760 pounds; sorghum and seed, syrup yield, 902,410 gallons; seed yield, 203,360 bushels; clover seed, 14,141 bushels; timothy seed, 10,522 bushels. Reports for an average year in fruit production are: Apples, 8,698,170 bushels; peaches, 61,006 bushels; grapes, 13, 783,656 pounds, and cherries, 62,708 bushels. The surplus dairy' production of 1914 was val ued at $18,000,000. The annual butter output is estimated at $12,000,000. The State is well adapted to the dairy industry. Strawberries are grown to the amount of about 15,000,000 quarts annually. Poultry raising is an import ant industry. The annual production of eggs is estimated at 100,000,000 dozens.
The'1917 corn crop amounted to 252,000,000 bushels, wheat to 27,540,000 bushels and cats to 59,260,000 bushels. In the same year 140,000 acres were planted to cotton, which yielded 51,000 bales, valued at $7,012,000; 6,000 acres were planted to flax, yielding 51,000 bushels of flax-seed; 3,000 acres were planted under tobacco, which yielded 2,820,000 pounds valued at $598,000. The aggregate value of the corn, wheat, oat, rice, potato, cotton, tobacco and hay crop of 1917 was $461,729,000.
Lumber.— Missouri is one of the few middle States that yet markets ties, lumber, laths and shingles in large quantities. The
State annually markets about 10,000,000 rail road ties, worth about $4,000,000 to the pro ducer. More than 1,000 sawmills had an out put of 60,159,000 feet of lumber in one year, ac cording to the last census report, the approxi mate value of which was, in round numbers, $30,000,000. This production, however, has now begun to diminish.
Mineral Resources.— Missouri has the lar gest deposits of lead, zinc, coal and clay of the Middle Western States. The principal lead dis trict is in southeastern Missouri in Saint Fran cis, Madison and Washington counties, but an important production of lead is made in the Joplin zinc district of southwestern Missouri. Ile lead, in the form of mineral galena, oc curs disseminated through the sedimentary rocks of the region, especially in the dolomites of the Bonne Terre formation of the Cam brian Age. The average ore contains about 3.5 to 4 per cent of lead, but the large scale upon which the deposits are worked gives a good profit. This district is one of the most im portant lead-producing areas in the world. Lead was discovered in southeastern Missouri about 1720 and .the region has produced the mineral more or less continuously ever since. Missouri's total production of lead is about $15,000,000 annually, the larger part of which comes from the southeastern district. In the war years the production reached the value of $32,000,000. The chief ore mineral of zinc in the Joplin district is sphalerite, or zinc blende, but there is also an Important production of zinc, silicate, calcimine and zinc carbonate, smithsonite. The ores are found in runs or circles and in sheet ground of limestone. The runs and circles may be 10 to 50 feet wide and are respectively shallow. The sheet ground may be from 10 to 70 feet thick and reaches a depth of 200 feet. The recent high price of both lead and zinc has greatly stimulated the mining industry and led to the opening up and development of new areas, as well as the ex tension of the older ones. The clay resources of Missouri are large and especially suited for the manufacture of common and fancy brick, tile, sewer-pipe, fire-brick and terra-cotta. While clays are found in all parts of the State, they are not all equally adapted to the specific uses given above. Missouri ranked eighth in this industry in the United States in 1914. Mis souri originally had an estimated available ton nage of 79,362,000,000 tons of coal. Since 1840, which is the first recorded production, 115,000, 000 tons have been mined and an additional 60,000,000 tons destroyed in mining the above quantity, thus leaving about 79,187,000,000 tons, of which not more than 60 per cent will be re covered. The coal occurs in the lower part of the Pennsylvania formation. The beds are rarely over four feet and most of those mined average about three feet or less. The Bevier bed furnishes about 60 per cent of the coal in Missouri. Other important coal-producing cen tres are at Rich Hill and Lexington. Missouri has long been famous for her ((iron mountain?' but the total amount of iron produced at this locality was only about 4,000,000 tons. There are many scattered deposits of hematite and limonite over the Ozark region. Missouri's total production is probably not more than 10,000,000 tons. The State also has many ex cellent building stones, notably the granite of southeastern Missouri and the limestone at Carthage and Phoenix, as well as stones in other parts of the State. Missouri has produced 60 per cent of the annual production of barite for the United States for many years and still has large reserves of this valuable mineral in Washington and other counties of the State.