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<br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />'I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br /> <br />OJ22S4 <br /> <br />than either wheat or cotton, it dominated acreage planted in <br />most counties by 1944. In that year, Hale County was the leading <br />grain sorghum producer, recording 224,925 harvested acres and a <br />yield of 1,083 pounds (19.2 bushels) per acre, primarily dryland <br />production. During these same years, all other counties had <br />become heavy cotton producers. but the shift into grain sorghums <br />was very noticeable. <br />In summary, the nine-county area's predominantly dryland fann <br />economy extended through about 1945, with livestock ranching <br />gradually giving way to intensive crop fanning. First it was <br />cotton and wheat as the major dryland crops, but in the 1940s a <br />pronounced increase in dryland grain sorghums made it the number <br />one cash crop, particularly in the northern tier of the nine <br />counties, where the soils were "tight" learns. Cotton maintained <br />its leadership in the southern tier of three counties - Lynn, <br />Garza and Terry - and the total wheat acreage remained about the <br />same throughout the period. Yields for the three principal <br />crops were low by 1980 standards - typically 20 bushels per acre <br />for sorghums, 160 pounds per acre for cotton (a third of a bale), <br />and a low 10 bushels per acre for wheat. <br />~gri-business Production and Marketi~ <br />Throughout this pre-irrigation period, very little agri- <br />culturally-related industry developed within the area centering <br />around Lubbock, The major food grain production - wheat - was <br />marketed by rail shipment to the emerging Dallas-Fort Worth flour <br /> <br />IV-9 <br /> <br />Arthur D Little.lnc <br />