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This article comments on some of the conclusions drawn by Riley E. Baker in respect to significant causative factors in the economic development of the Great Plains area. The economy of, and the techniques employed within, an area are a part of the aggregate economy, not isolated from it. This situation derives largely from the composite of technological developments associated with improved transportation and increased tendencies toward both individual producer and area specialization. The network of interrelationships is not an easy one to explain. Nevertheless, this difficulty does not warrant simplification merely for ease of explanation. Some passages in Baker's paper explicitly, and others by implication, indicate that he leans toward undue simplification, intentional or otherwise. There has appeared a tendency in recent years to interpret the implications of a vastly expanding technological front in terms of the impacts of a few selected techniques lifted from their functional relationships within the integrated whole. This tendency is probably the inevitable result of preliminary observations of the influences of wide technological advances upon the entire structure of an economy.