377 



Tho mines and military posts are our only markets for surplus farm- 

 produce, except -wool and hides. The mines are rapidly increasing, 

 while the posts are uncertain, variable, and decreasing, as markets. 

 Dona Ana County has mines of silver, copper, and lead, but none are 

 worked at present. The mines of Grant County are producing at the 

 rate of $1,000,000 a year 5 and to them most of our products are sold. 



Freights from and to the East are conveyed six hundred miles by 

 wagons, aud at great cost and delay, as the wagons are not unfrequently 

 ninety days on the road. The completion of the Texas Pacific Railway 

 to this valley would add much to the value of our lo.nd, increase our 

 comfort and population, remove our isolation, promote knowledge and 

 civilization, and develop all our natural resources aud advantages. 

 Every man here is anxious to see that road completed. 



The eight grape-vines I received from your Department on the 20th 

 January, ISTi, though transplanted last December, have made reeds 

 eight feet long this summer ; and those received iu March last, single- 

 eye plants, have made good strong reeds from three to six feet. They 

 are still growing vigorously. I have great faith in their succeeding 

 here as well as in the gardens washed by the Mediterranean. 



Crops in Nebraska. — Dixon : Our crops are the best that we have 

 had for eight years. Nearly all are splendid. Farmers are in good 

 spirits and look for better times. Somerset oats are a success here, 

 but the Sandy oats fall too easily for our soil. 



Waste of flax-fiber. — Meeker^ Minnesota : The culture of flax is of 

 considerable importance to our farmers. It is raised by all who could 

 obtain seed. Many who desired to cultivate it could not for want of 

 seed. It is cultivated wholly for the seed, no account being made of the 

 straw. Thousands of tons of flax-straw are annually burned or other- 

 wise destroyed, which, with proper machinery, could be utilized and be- 

 come a source of profit to both i^roducer and manufacturer. 



Floods. — Wayne^ Iowa : It has rained almost all the time since the 

 20th of June, taking oft' nine-tenths of the bridges in the county. 



Specialties in Ohio. — Medina : We have splendid weather for grass, 

 and as dairying is the great specialty in this county, farmers would re- 

 joice were it not for the low price of dairy-jjroducts. But what is their 

 loss is the public's gain. Onions also are becoming a specialty in some 

 townships in which are reclaimed swamps, and we could not have bet- 

 ter weather than we are now having for that product. It is said that 

 they will be shipped East by cars. 



Profitable stock-growing. — Tippecanoe, Indiana : Pasturage is 

 very fine. Stock is doing well. One of our large grazers has sold off his 

 pasture one thousand head at 5 cents per pound gross, weighed at the 

 pasture. 



Damages in Illinois from excessive rains. — Shelby : On our ex- 

 tensive river-bottoms corn-fields submerged by the floods have the ap- 

 pearance of stalk-fields in February — all dead. This is doubtless owing 

 partly to the fact that the corn was half torn from the roots, and partly 

 to the sediments that have settled upon it from the water. Over one 

 hundred families have lost all corn, wheat, oats, and potatoes. The lat- 

 ter were lost by rot. In fact, all potatoes on flat land have rotted, and 

 yet there will be an immense crop. 



White: Oar county is on the verge of distress. We have had con- 

 inual wet weather since early in the spring until the last sixteen days, 



