23fi 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



scription of manual labour bears an enormous price, 

 it will be readily understood that there are but slight 

 inducements for our farmers' sons to waste their lives 

 in striving to redeem the homestead farms which 

 have been impoverished by their ancestry, when, 

 within a few hundreds of miles, there are lying untitled 

 miUions of acres as fertile as any which you possess in 

 "iUcft or Suflfolk. This state of things has developed 

 two characteristics in Americans, viz., a very feeble 

 attachment to localities, and a wonderful growth of the 

 inventive faculties. Do they wish to raise better crops ? 

 instead of duplicating the patient experiments of Mr. Al- 

 derman Mechi or Mr. Lawes, they sell their ancestral 

 acres for whatever they will bring, and with the proceeds 

 purchase larger and more fertile farms in the West. Do 

 they find it impossible to hire labourers to gather their 

 teeming harvests, except at unreasonable prices? they 

 get some friend to invent labour-saving tools that for a 

 jModerate price will perform the work of twenty or forty 

 men. And thus, whilst it must be candidly acknow- 

 ledged by every American that our systems of farming, 

 as compared with your ov.-n, are shiftless and crude, 

 our annual aggregate of product continually augments, 

 because new territory ia each year put under cultivation. 



If, however, we do not follow the examples you set 

 us, we are kept informed as to what you are doing. We 

 are a reading people, and by means of our agricultural 

 press are made acquainted with the sayings of Professor 

 Voelcker, and Mr. Johnson, and the doings of the Mar- 

 quis of Tweeddale, and Mr. Booth of Warlaby. The 

 Mark Lane Express is as well known, and many of its 

 best articles are as well read here as they are at Iwme. 



T found that there was a general impression prevalent 

 in Great Britain that our cotton crop was by far the 

 most valuable to the country ; and I do not remember 

 to have met with a person who realized the national im- 

 portance of our Indian corn. In the last report of our 

 Patent Office, the statistics show that Indian corn ranks 

 as the most valuable of our crops, the annual yield being 

 600,000,000 bushels, and its value i,60,000,000. The 

 wheat crop is valued at i,'20,000,000 ; and cotton comes 

 next in order. Our hay is worth only £400,000 less 

 than the cotton crop. 



The average value of Indian corn to the farmer who 

 is near any considerable market is 2s. per bushel, or 

 one-half that price if unshelled and sold "in the ear," 

 as it is termed. Where the producer is at some dis- 

 tance from market, this small price will not warrant his 

 paying the railway charges on the grain ; and it is con- 

 sequently more profitable for him to feed his corn to 

 hogs, and sell them alive to the agents of the great 

 slaughtering establishments which abound in our western 

 cities. On our higher-priced lands in the old states it 

 is more profitable to raise crops which give a greater 

 profit in a small bulk. And, especially is this the case 

 In the slave states, where the high price of labourers 

 and the cost of their maintenance, added to the expense 

 of maintaining their non-working masters, require the 

 cultivation of such crops as cotton, tobacco, and sugar 

 to obtain a profit. 



The spring of the past year was in many parts of the 



country disastrous to winter wheat, and throughout the 

 West the rains continued so long, and the ground became 

 so sodden with wet, that it was impossible to procure a 

 good start of Indian corn until too late to give a perfect 

 ripening and full crop. Even as many as three and four 

 plantings of seed were made in some instances, before a 

 set could be got. Wheat sotted in the ground, or else 

 was attacked by rust, and spring grain even suffered 

 from the same causes. The venerable Secretary of the 

 New York State Agricultural Society gives me the fol- 

 lowing reliable statistics of the wheat crop of 1858, and 

 the prospect for the current year. 



„ Y ir J" A-bout 15 per cent, under that of 1857 in 



ew or . . . . ■j^ quantity, but superior in quality. 

 Pennsylvania . . An average crop. 

 Maryland An average crop, and excellent quality. 



{20 per cent, less than last year, owing to 

 the wet spring, summer drought, and 

 attacks of insects. 

 North Carolina . About one-half a crop. 

 Kentucky .... Average. 

 Tennessee .... Good. 



Missouri About two-thirds crop. 



Q, . r 20 per cent, leas, but more land in culti- 



' I vation. 



T„ . .„ r Southern part an average, central only one- 



^"''^°*^ 1 third. 



Indiana One-half to two-thirds. 



Michigan Two-thirds, quality excellent. 



Taking the whole country into consideration, the ag- 

 gregate wheat crop is about three-fourths of an average 

 crop per acre : but from there having been much more 

 territory under cultivation, the yield is only about one- 

 fourth less than that of 1857. Throughout the West 

 the sti'eams were greatly swollen by the long-continued 

 rains, and many thousands of acres of crops were en- 

 tirely swept away. 



Estimated product for 1858. 1859. 



Busb. Bush. 



New York 22,000,000 .... 20,000,000 



Pennsylvania.... 20,000,000 .... 20.000,000 



Virginia 20,000,000 18,500,000 



Kentucky 10,000 000 .... 8,500,000 



Ohio 25,000,000 .... 22,000,000 



Indiana 15,000,000 .... 13,000,000 



Illinois 18,000,000 .... 14,500,000 



Other States .... 50,000,000 .... 42.000,000 



Total, 



180,000,000 .... 158,500,000 



The hay crop has been fair. Potatoes about an aver- 

 age crop ; but the whole family of cereals may be fairly 

 reckoned the same as wheat. 



We have welcomed with open arms a new plant, 

 whioh in your columns has for its only champion " The 

 English farmer in Belgium." I refer to the sorgho, or 

 Chinese sugar-cane, introduced here in 18.54, and with 

 only some half-dozen acres in cultivation in 1855, ic has 

 run throughout our territory as electricity through iron, 

 until it is estimated, with every .ippearance of probability, 

 that there have been over 100,000 acres in cultivation 

 the past season, and this enormous area is likely to be 

 doubled in the coming spring. It has been found to 

 flourish in every one of our States, and has in turn 

 yielded crops of excellent forage, syrup, and in some 

 cases of sugar and other products. A well-known sugar 

 refiner of Philadelphia, Mr. Lovcring, has made from 



