237 



thought that the soil and cHmate are well adapted to the growing of Flax, and 

 that it will soon form one of the staple products of the county. 



The Tobacco plant has wandered so far from " Old Virginny," that it is thought 

 acclimated even this far north; and several of our farmers are proposing to go 

 into the raising " the weed" another season. 



Potatoes. — This valuable esculent used to be a profitable crop before the rot 

 became fashionable ; but for the la.st four years has hardly paid cost as a general 

 thing. No soil or locality seems proof against the disease. I have tried through 

 a period of five years the different varieties of soil and location; sand and gravel, 

 clay and loam, high land and low land, wet land and dry, and with the same 

 general result. I have, however, satisfied myself that the difiiculty is not occa- 

 sioned by an insect or a grub, but is a regular disease, and one for whifch no 

 adequate remedy has yet been found. But my repeated attempts and partial 

 failures have convinced me of two things, to wit : potatoes should be planted 

 early, and should not be planted whole, but cut in small pieces in order that the 

 seed may decay as soon as possible ; and, further, that, when there is any indi- 

 cation of disease, they should be dug as soon as ripe. The disease has consider- 

 ably modified its form since its first introduction, and I think is gradually being 

 abated. Five years since it visited my potatoe patch, for the first time, one day 

 after a warm shower, and in less than twenty-four hours the whole was a black 

 mass of corruption, the stench of which was intolerable. Since that time it has 

 gradually lessened its virulence, so that during last season I was enabled to save the 

 "lion's share," which has usually been appropriated by the other part}'. My 

 success this time, however, I attribute to the fact that I dug my potatoes as soon 

 as I saw the disease strike the leaf, and before it reached the root. 



Frcit. — We have every natural indication of a fine fruit-growing count}'. 

 "Wild grapes, apples, and plums abound ; and so far as fruit has been introduced 

 it has been cultivated successfully. Nine years since, I put out the first trees that 

 I have known in the county. My peaches produced fruit the second year, and 

 the fourth died out, appaiantly from the effects of some insect. My plums were 

 destroyed without producing fruit (after they had grown to a large size) by some, 

 to my superficial vision, unseen cause. My apples have produced fruit for two 

 years past; and I have currants, grapes, and cherries, in reasonable quantities. 

 Last year I set out a new lot of trees from Phoenix's Nursery, Delavan; among 

 which were apples, pears, peaches, plums, apricots, cherries, quinces, <fec., all of 

 which are doing well, and promise well for the future. Our farmers are gene- 

 rally giving attention to the subject; and for the last two years very many 

 orchards have been planted, and but a few years more will elapse before we shall 

 produce sufficient fruit for our own immediate consumption. 



Appropos of trees. Much imposition has been practised by pedlars and 



