STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 48 3 



The State motto might well read: '* If you seek the American wheat peninsula, look 

 around you." 



The table also reveals the surprising fact that while the aggregate product of 

 wheat in Michigan has doubled about every ten years, the average yield per acre has 

 increased from ten busliels in 1849 to eighteen bushels in 1877. The causes for this 

 most gratifying result are not far to seek. It is due to the greater care of farmers 

 in selecting seed; to the introduction of new varieties, such as the Clawson, which 

 yields better than its predecessors; to improved machinery and methods of drilling 

 and harvesting; and to an increase of live stock and consequent increase of fertiliza- 

 tion. The increase in the aggregate is due mainly to the rapid settlement and clear- 

 ing up of the country, and there is no reason to suppose tliat the increase will be 

 seriously checked until the millions of acres of wild lands are finally brought under 

 cultivation. What the limit will be, must be left to conjecture. 



SURPRISING FACTS. 



Mr. Robert L. Hewitt, statistical clerk of the Secretary of State's office, rendered 

 valuable service to the cause of Michigan agriculture by preparing and exhibiting at 

 the State Fair a large map showing the number of acres, the bushels and the average 

 yield per acre of wheat in each county for the year 1877. Among the many impor- 

 tant facts which is forcibly illustrated, were some that seemed almost incredible. It 

 is not many years ago since farmers believed that only the exti-eme southern counties 

 of the State were adapted to wheat culture, yet this wheat map shows that one-half 

 the crop of 1877 was raised north of a line running east and west through the north- 

 ern edge of Eaton and Ingham counties. Indeed, taking the counties, tier by tier 

 from the Indiana line, neither the greatest aggregate in bushels nor the highest aver- 

 age per acre is reached until we get into the fourth tier, while the fifth and sixth 

 tiers show a higher general average than the first and second, and compare favorably 

 with them in the aggregate bushels produced. The rapid advance of the wheat line 

 into the northern woods is as gratifying as it was unexpected. Along all that 

 sweeping water line — from Monroe at the southeast, with its nineteen bushels to the 

 acre, up to Bay with its twenty-four and Cheboj'gan with its nineteen, around and 

 down to Berrien, at the southwest, with its fifteen — there is no break in the wheat 

 line, no county where the staple is not grown profitably. Hills and plains, oak open- 

 ings and cedar thickets, hard-wood and soft-wood land, north and south, the whole 

 peninsula in a wheat belt. 



THE CORN CROP. 



Second to wheat as a field crop in this State is corn, to be valued not directly by 

 its exports like wheat, but by its home consumption, in feeding stock, etc. The crop 

 increased from 7,500,000 bushels in 1853 to over 20,000,000, in 1873, the average yield 

 per acre increasing from twenty-three to thirty-two bushels in the meantime. The 

 number of acres harvested in 1877 was 732,946, and undoubtedly reached 800,000 in 

 1878. At thirty-five bushels to the acre and thirty cents a bushel, this would give 

 28,000,000 bushels as the amount, and $8,400,000 as the market value of Michigan corn 

 crop last harvested. Adding tlie fodder, and 10,000,000 would probably be a low esti- 

 mate. A corn map, could one be constructed, would show that this great staple also 

 is admirably adapted to our soil and climate, and is grown successfully in all parts of 

 the Lower Peninsula. The steady increase of the crop at the rate of nearly 1,000,000 

 bushels annually indicates a corresponding increase in live stock and the fertilizing 

 agencies which would follow an excessive cropping with wheat. 



OATS. 



The acreage of oats harvested in the State in 1877 was 431,629, being several thou- 

 sand acres less than in 1876, and the reports for 1878 show a still further decrease in 

 the amount sown. From the best figures and escimates at hand I do not think it is 

 safe to put the oat crop last harvested at more than 14,000,000 bushels. This falling 

 ofl" is due partly, no doubt, to the greater attention given to wheat the past two 

 years in anticipation of a prolonged European war, and partly to a growing belief 

 among farmers that oats are more exhaustive to the soil, more productive of weeds, 

 and, on the whole, less profitable than other crops which might take their place. 

 The cost of producing an acre of oats in the southern part of the State is estimated 

 at $9, so that at 25 cents a bushel anything less tlian a yield of 36 bushels to the acre 

 is a dead loss. On heavy soils the yield is much more than that, and with the im- 

 proved varieties and more skillful tillage, it must show greatly increased profits. It 

 forms a cheap and valuable feed for all farm stock, and, 1 predict, will soon regain its 

 lost ground. 



