496 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



dividual enterprize seek and partially obtain those results 

 which Governments alone can accurately furnish." 



From accounts which are reaching us from different 

 sections of country, we may infer that the crops promise 

 well for a full harvest. Spring has come upon us un- 

 usually early, and winter grain, which had been severely 

 injured by the unusual absence of snow, is feeling the 

 effects of warm rains and sunshine. In central New 

 York it is thought that it will get such a start as to be 

 beyond the reach of the fly ; but if we should have a 

 sudden change, and, as has sometimes been the case, a 

 "cold term" set in for a week or so of this month, 

 great damage will be done to vegetation, which is every- 

 where in a forward state. In Maryland the reports arc 

 flattering, with the exception of grain on low lands, 

 which has been considerably thrown out. The accounts 

 from Virginia are conflicting ; but, in the main, favoura- 

 ble. Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Kansas all give cheer- 

 ing indications of a bountiful yield. In Illinois the 

 prospects are that an average crop will be obtained, the 

 warm weather having worked a great change for the 

 better — especially in the central and southern portions 

 of the State. In January and February the accounts were 

 peculiarly discouraging, a great part of winter wheat 

 being supposed to be winter-killed, and some of the 

 agricultural press seriously advised the farmers to culti- 

 vate Indian-corn to the exclusion of wheat, the latter 

 being too uncertain. Now the Chicago Tribune, and 

 other leading newspapers, say that the farmers are every- 

 where encouraged with their prospects. Michigan, 

 Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, 

 Texas, and the fertile States of Iowa, Wisconsin, and 

 Minnesota give the same flattering hopes for the coming 

 harvest. 



The New York Herald, quoting the estimates for the 

 crop of 1859 (as given in my former communication), 

 corrects them by the light of our present prospects, as 

 follows : — 



Estimate of Col. Johnson, Estimate of New York 

 as given in my letter. | Herald, 



New York . 20,000,000 bushels.! 20,000,000 bushels. 



Pennsylvania 20,000,000 



Virginia 18,500,000 



Kentucky.. 8,500,000 



Ohio 22,000,000 



Indiana 13,000,000 



Illinois 14,500,000 



Other States 42,000,000 



20,000,000 

 20,000,000 

 12,000,000 

 27,000,000 

 20,000,000 

 18,000,000 

 65,000,000 



158,500,000 bushels. | 202,000,000 bushels. 



Cotton promises well so far as accounts reach us from 

 Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas. The Mobile 

 Mei'cury asserts that the present crop of cotton will 

 exceed the production of any previous year by several 

 hundred thousand bales. 



The New York Herald says the prospects for the 

 sugar-crop of 1859 are decidedly gloomy, the stubble 

 having generally failed. It gives the sugar-crop of 

 Louisiana for the past ten years as follows : — 



Crop of 1849 247,923 hogsheads. 



,, 1850 211,201 



„ 1851 236,547 



,, 1852 321,934 



„ 1853 449,324 



,, 1854 346,600 „ 



,, 1855 231,412 „ 



,, 1856 73,976 



,, 1857 297,097 ,, 



,, 1858 365,000 ,, 



From the above it will be seen why the Chinese 

 sugar-cane, or sorgho, which was in 1856 and 

 1857 most prominently brought to the attention of 

 American farmers, was so eagerly adopted, that, in a 

 single year, at least a hundred thousand acres were put 

 into cultivation. If it shall be found that this year's 

 cane has been so injured by winter frosts as to reduce 

 the sugar crop to the minimum of 1856, we may expect, 

 with the aid of our three years' experience with the sor- 

 gho, to see western sugar-making undertaken to a very 

 large extent. 



As regards the cereal crops throughout our Western 

 States, there has not recently been a year when a full 

 harvest was of more momentous importance. The 

 short crops of the two years past have caused a pros- 

 tration of trade and enterprise of such extreme nature 

 as to have reduced the price of land which in 1856 was 

 worth fifty dollars an acre, to about twenty. Some five 

 hundred millions of dollars have been expended for rail- 

 roads, built solely to transport the products of western 

 farms to Atlantic markets, and which, in consequence 

 of the small quantity of products otfered for transporta- 

 tion, and diminished arrivals of immigrants, as well as to 

 internal mismanagement, are not paying either interest 

 on their stock, or, in some cases, their running expenses. 

 A full crop for the present year would set matters com- 

 paratively to rights again ; and if once the farmers get 

 out of debt, and can lay by a little money, the re-action, 

 passing through all the links of the chain, from the 

 small western storekeeper, and the jobbers and import- 

 ers in our seaboard cities, would soon be felt at the end 

 which is held in your cities of manufacture. If a 

 general European war be impending, with what 

 momentous importance is the question of food pro- 

 duction in this country invested ! To England, with 

 her powers of production taxed to the utmost, her popu- 

 lation increasing at the rate of a thousand a day, and 

 her importations of breadstufFs to the amount of forty or 

 fifty millions sterling annually; to France, with her 

 four millions of inhabitants, who eat no bread because 

 her large crop of ninety-seven millions of hectolitres of 

 wheat leaves no overplus for them after feeding their 

 thirty-two million compatriots ; to Spain, whose cen- 

 tral table-lands have by shiftier cultivation become over- 

 grown with weeds and reduced in fertility ; to Prussia, 

 Austria, Belgium, Holland, and other States, where the 

 increase of population is attended by a decrease of the 

 breadth of land devoted to cereal produce — to all these 

 the question as to whether we shall or shall not have a 

 bountifiil harvest is of great importance. And so, 

 reilectively, to us, your wars and rumours of wars, your 

 prosperity and adversity, your political changes and 

 your commercial aspects, are all fraught with an infinite 

 interest, and as carefully studied by intelligent Ameri- 

 cans as the more immediate events which are transpiring 

 within our own boundaries. H. S. O. 



New York, April, 1859. 



