374 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Many farmers think they can more easily, if not profitably, 

 raise fruits, large and small, market-vegetables, potatoes, or 

 tobacco, and buy grains to feed their cattle, and special fer- 

 tilizers to supply the lack of farmyard-manure caused by 

 neglecting corn and grain crops. Doubtless they are some- 

 what justified in this, and specially in the crops of tobacco 

 and potatoes. 



POTATOES. 



Potatoes, if thoroughly cultivated, leave land in good con- 

 dition for a succeeding crop, and usually pay well enough for 

 a farmer to sell, at a fair profit, a surplus beyond what he 

 needs to eat and to feed. 



In 1845 we dug 11,309,000 worth, at 83 cents per bushel : 

 in 1875, at 65 cents per bushel, we had $2,349,815 worth. 



TOBACCO. 



Tobacco has at times been a very paying crop ; and per- 

 haps, if judiciously managed, it might always be so. At any 

 rate, it has brought a large amount of money into some parts 

 of the State. 



In 1840 we had but $3,854 worth, at 6 cents per pound : 

 in 1880 we packed 5,369,436 pounds, valued at 18 cents per 

 pound, amounting to $698,805. 



The only way in which many farmers can look with favor 

 on tobacco is in following it, after two or three years, with 

 wheat, and stocking down to grass, by which course one can 

 cut forty bushels of wheat to the acre, and three or four tons 

 of hay, for three or four successive years ; the heavy manur- 

 ing and the thorough culti'vation which the tobacco receives 

 leaving the land free from weeds, and insuring heavy, clean 

 grain and grass crops for a long time. 



Next to our neglect of sheep-raising, our greatest remiss- 

 ness is in not growing wheat, which has gone from 157,923 

 bushels in 1840 down to 15,768 bushels in 1880, valued at 

 $1.68, as against $1.14 in 1845. By the census of 1880 it 

 seems that we are improving, as we raised over 2,000 bush- 

 els more than we did in 1875 ; but in 1874 the farmers 

 of this Commonwealth sowed 21,351 acres of rye (which 

 yielded but llf bushels to the acre) worth 99 cents per bushel, 

 and only sowed 677i acres of wheat (which averaged 20J 

 busliels to the acre) worth $1.68 per bushel. Much of the 



