STATE AGRICUT/rUKAL SOCIETY. 



487 



Michigan agriculture, increasing in importance as husbandry becomes more diver- 

 sified. 



IMPROVEMENT IN FAKM IMPLEMENTS. 



The increase in farm products has been attended and in part caused by a remarka- 

 ble improvement in farm implements. In every department of farm work, and at 

 every stage from the breaking up of the soil to the marketing of the grain, invention 

 has lent a helping hand, and a large proportion of labor, but recently done by hand, 

 is now done better, cheaper and more rapidly by machinery. Plows, harrows, rollers, 

 planters, seed-drills, cultivators, reapers, mowers, rakes, threshers, shellers, straw- 

 cutters, etc., have multiplied beyond all precedent, and year by year are being 

 brought nearer perfection. Six years ago there was scarcely a farm windmill in the 

 State. Now they are quite common and in many localities are the main dependence 

 for watering stock. A few years ago, when the Flint and Pere Marquette railroad 

 pushed west from Saginaw, there was scarcely a flouring mill in Central or Northern 

 Michigan. To-day there arc a score of large flouring mills on the line of that 

 road and north of it, and all are doing a large custom work. A great desideratum is 

 a cheap and eflective stump-puller, unless the new method of blasting them out 

 should meet those requirements. 



COMPARISON WITH OTHER STATES. 



From such imperfect data as are at hand, I have reviewed thus briefly the amount 

 and relative importance of the different farm products of the State. I close this 

 branch of the subject with a comparison of Michigan with other western States. 

 The following table, compiled from the Government Agricultural Reports, shows the 

 average cash value per acre of the products named for five consecutive years, ending 

 with 1875: 



Corn 



Wheat 



Rye 



Oats 



Barley 



Buckwheat 



Potatoes 



Hay 



Total for one acre 



$17 37 

 16 66 



10 99 

 12 49 

 19 21 



11 97 

 49 62 

 16 32 



$154 53 



The table shows, in nearly every instance, a dift'erence in favor of the Michigan 

 farmer, due partly to difterence in soil and tillage and partly to his nearness to the 

 eastern market. 



SWINE. 



In 1874 the number of hogs over six months old in Michigan was 401,719, and the 

 product of pork the year previous was 48,434,106 pounds. No well regulated farm is 

 complete without a few swine, and in the southern counties of the State especially 

 the pork crop is looked upon as second only to the wheat crop in value. The hog has 

 always been the farmer's scavenger, converting into meat what would otherwise go 

 to waste or become a nuisance, the scavenger being a source of more annoyance and 

 receiving less care than any other tenant of the farmer. Of late years he has re- 

 ceived more attention, and there is a growing disposition to accord him the same 

 considerate treatment shown the sheep and ox. The old wind splitters have been 

 worked over into grade Berkshires, Suflblks, Essex and Poland Chinas, and are now 

 stall fed instead of foraging at random as formerly. The margin of profit is not 

 large and can only be increased by improving the breed, fattening more sj'Stemat- 

 ically and with more concentrated food, and killing at an earlier age. Pork raising 

 should accompany grain raising as a profitable auxiliary, and we look forward to the 

 census of 1880 to show an unprecedented advance in this branch of Michigan hus- 

 bandry. 



