FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 391 



periods, giving tlirec years in each of three periods and four years in the last, 

 wo shall have the following averages, viz.: 1-1 ;^, 13.9, 13.7, and 13.1 bushels, 

 showing a gradual diminution. Make these periods four years and the last five 

 on account of the uneven number thirteen, and -we have 14f, 13i, and 13.28 

 bushels, showing still a gradual decrease -with a new grouping. Divide again 

 into periods respectively of six and seven years and we have an average of 14.14 

 and 13.4 bushels per acre. Thus you will see that there is a real and gradual 

 diminution in the yield of v/heat per acre in our State, and that this is no ficti- 

 tious manipulating of figures to produce a given result ; but the average falls 

 lower, group these thirteen years in whatever way you please. 



This being the true state of affairs in our own State to-day, witii the fact con- 

 fronting us that there is annually a largo acreage cleared and put into wheat, 

 which brings a large yield for the first three crops, and what conclusion are we 

 to draw for the future when there will be very few, if any, new fields to open up 

 to this crop. There will be only this conclusion, that our yearly average per 

 acre will be very much lessened. Another fact has a bearing just here, and 

 that is this : that the farmers in the older portions of our State are v/aking up 

 as it were to the exigencies of the case, and for the last ten years have been 

 improving their methods of farming in such a way as to assist in keeping up 

 this average. 



Tlie uncertainty of the wheat crop. The opinion is rapidly gaining ground 

 among farmers that the wheat crop is an uncertain crop, and when we compare 

 it with almost any other of our staple crops, we see that this is largely the case. 



If the farmer sows a little too early ho is liable to give his crop to the insect, 

 especially if frosts are late and the weather warm in the fall. Then if he sow 

 late there is danger of the wheat getting a small root and to}), or a "2)oor start," 

 as farmers generally term it, and then is less able to withstand the rigors of 

 our winters if we have little snow for protection. 



If the crop pass all these in safety, we sometimes have a drouth in the latter 

 part of March or first part of April that, Avitli the high winds usually prevailing, 

 gives it a severe trial. Then later in the season the danger of midge and rust, 

 together v/ith the anxiety of good weather in harvest, puts the wheat crop among 

 those that are liable to the greatest number of casualties. 



You will notice that the season, or some of its conditions, has very much to 

 do with the success of a wheat crop after the farmer has done his duty fully and 

 even kept his land in a condition of fertility capable of producing thirty bushels 

 per acre. The meteorology of the country has much to do with our crop, and 

 althougli it has been but six years since the first attempts at prediction of storms 

 and their areas, and many mistakes and blunders have occurred, we have in the 

 report given by General Meyer, that during 18?G eighty-seven per cent, of the 

 predictions were verified in every particular. If this be the record of what has 

 been done in six years, may we not hope as observations are multiplied and 

 extended over a series of years, that inductions may be made as to the general 

 character of a whole season so as to aid the agriculturist much more than at 

 present. Already many millions have been saved in the greater value of crops 

 secured by the prediction of local or general storms from 24 to 48 hours before 

 they came. 



GENERAL ESTIMATES 



Although there is a general decline in the amount per acre, are we not 

 approaciiing a wheat scarcity? In an address before the National Agricultural 



