is somewhat more than that of all New England and only a few
thousand square miles less than the combined areas of Ohio
and Indiana. It is the seventeenth state of the Union in size
and is larger than any state east of the Mississippi River.

The entire state lies in the Mississippi drainage basin and is
traversed by a number of rivers. Among these are the Red,
which forms the southern boundary, and the Red's northern
tributary, the Washita. Farther north are the two Canadians,
North and South, and the Cimarron. The waters of these three
eventually find their way into the Arkansas, in many respects
Oklahoma's most important stream. The Arkansas has several
tributaries, including the Salt Fork, Grand, and Verdigris.
The Kiamitia in the southeast, which flows into Red River, is
also a stream of some importance.

Climate, topography, and products all serve to illustrate the
peculiar "border land" qualities of the state. The western half
consists largely of level or slightly rolling prairies, broken in the
southwest by an irregular chain of low granite mountains called
the Wichitas. This western half of Oklahoma partakes of the
nature of the Great Plains region, of which portions of the area
are distinctly a part. The eastern half, on the other hand, is
much more hilly and mountainous, and has extensive forests of
pine and deciduous trees. The rainfall here may be as much
as forty-five to fifty inches annually, whereas in the extreme
west it is hardly more than twenty inches, and in portions of the
Panhandle it is often considerably less than that. The general
slope of the land is from northwest to southeast, and the altitude
varies from some 4,000 feet in the western part of the Panhan-
dle to less than 400 feet in the extreme southeast. The western
half of the state is largely an agricultural region; the greater part
of the mineral production is in the eastern part. Cotton is
grown extensively in the southern half of Oklahoma, and in
most of the northern half the chief crop is wheat; cotton is not
produced at all. A considerable quantity of corn is grown in
the eastern region where the rainfall is reasonably heavy, but
little is planted in the more arid west, where kafir corn, milo

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