Recent Market Orientations of the American Dairy Region

more or less stationary areally for some time. Each of the major agricultural regions of the Mississippi drainage basin has expanded westward in the past with the influx of settlers, and has reached its western margin at or near the dry land border of the 100th meridian. Continued expansion, with increasing markets, has been accomplished by (1) intensification within the region itself, or (2) pushing beyond the steppe border into the drier areas. Thus the greatly increased milk, corn, and meat production of the past ten years has been largely due to increased production within the existing framework of the American Dairy Region and the American Corn Belt, while the Cotton Belt has expanded areally westward into the drier lands of southwestern Oklahoma and western Texas. The existence of the Hard Winter Wheat Belt at the western, drier, edge of the Long Summer Climate in Kansas and southwestern Nebraska, and of the Spring Wheat Belt at the western, drier, edge of the Short Summer Climate in the Dakotas has acted as a buffer to retard westward expansion of parts of the Corn Belt and of the Dairy Region. Consequently the areal limits of the two latter regions have been fairly well set for some time. Only the Minnesota portion of the Red River Valley has gained much increase of the dairy industry at the expense of wheatgrowing. The very large increase of milk production of recent years has been result of (1) greatly increased production in the American Dairy Region, and (2) increased dairy production elsewhere, particularly in portions of the Corn Belt such as the northern half of Iowa, and in parts of the South. The purpose of this paper is not to discuss the shifts, but rather to point out some recent market reorientations within the Amer

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