309 
frosty spring,and the extraordinary amount of rain in all except the 
New England and Middle States during the planting season, are among 
the causes which have checked an increase, and to some.extent occa- 
sioned a decrease in acreage. It will be seen that in all the Gulf States 
there is an increase. This result, due mainly to a healthy tendency in 
the cotton States toward producing their own supplies, has, perhaps, 
been perceptibly increased by the amount of cotton-fields plowed up 
and planted in corn. The largest absolute falling off, by far, is in the 
great corn-growing State of Illinois, in which there is also a still larger 
falling off, 15 per cent., in condition. 
Condition—Owing to the peculiarities of the spring weather the 
planting of corn was almost universally late. Throughout the North- 
ern, Middle, and Northwestern States the seed, to an unheard-of 
extent, failed to germinate. ‘This is generally accounted for on the sup- 
position that the seed-corn, not being sufficientiy dried in the autumn, 
was injured’by the extraordinary freezing of last winter. This failure, 
together with the extensively prevailing wet, cold weather during the 
season of its germination, and the consequent depredations of worms, 
has occasioned an unprecedented amount of replanting, often the second, 
and in not a few cases the third, and even the fourth time. In the New 
England and Middle States, also in Ohio, Michigan, and sections of 
adjacent States, and in California, an early drought checked its growth, 
while South and West protracted wet weather has greatly hindered cul- 
tivation, and multiplie@ weeds and grass. These causes combined left 
the crop, July 1, generally quite backward and in an unfavorable condi- 
tion. But as the stand is nearly, if not quite, average, as the too dry 
weather at the North and the too wet at the South and West has 
already changed for the better, and as July and August are the months 
in which corn is made, (except in the cotton States,) there is yet a 
chance for great improvement and a much larger crop than the con- 
dition at the date of reporting seemed to indicate. At that date, only 
three States—Georgia, 103; Florida, 106; and Arkansas, 101—came up 
to average in condition. Maine and Connecticut were below, 13 per 
cent.; New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Kentucky, 8; Vermont 
and New York, 24; Massachusetts, 9; Rhode Island, New Jersey, 
Delaware, and California, 12; Pennsylvania, 20; Maryland and South 
Carolina, 16; Virginia, Mississippi, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, 45 
Alabama and Kentucky, 7; Louisiana and Illinois, 15; Texas, Michigan, 
Indiana, Minnesota, and Nebraska, 10; Tennessee, 1; Ohio, 14; Iowa, 
11; Missouri, 2; Oregon, 3. By counties, 271 return average condition, 
220 above, and 680 below. 
‘‘Cut-worms” have been quite generally troublesome, and especially 
so in Maryland; grasshoppers, which destroyed much of the first plant- 
ing in Texas, but left in season for a second planting, are injuring the 
crop in some sections of California, and chinch-bugs are threatening 
extensive injury to it in Missouri and Kansas. 
The facts of acreage and condition may be learned more in detail 
from the following table and from the subjoined extracts from corre- 
spondents: 
