64 



cattle, $2.50 per cwt, gross ; liogs, (badly tbiuned by cbolera,) $3.75 to 

 $4 ; horses and mules, " dull sale at low prices." Our correspondent 

 further reports : 



Lands are greatly reduced in price. Farms wliicli were purchased iiveand six years 

 ago for $20 and $23 per aero can now be bad at ^12 to $18 per acre. Mountain table- 

 lands are a mere drug — worth from 10 cents to $1 per acre, and no buyers. Five years 

 ago these lands were sold readily at $2 to $o and |lO per acre, according to amount of 

 improvement. Wild lands generally (and wild-cat titles) on Walden's Ridge and 

 Cumberland Mountain get away with northern and western men. The object of many 

 unprincipled men here is to rob and plunder. They write flattering letters to be pub- 

 lished in the different agricultural papers of the Uuiou, or send out circulars in every 

 direction ; and for the j»ast four or five years they have succeeded admirably in en- 

 trapping the unwary. Now, however, the pens of those who have been taken in are 

 making vast changes in regard to emigration ; hence the great decline in the prices of 

 mountain lands. We might safely add that two-thirds of the immigration to these 

 lands for the past five years have migrated elsewhere after having been stripped of 

 every dollar and valuable. The mountain is the home of the rich man who can num- 

 ber his cattle by the hundred and in the autumn drive them to his farm in the valley, 

 or to market. The land is not adapted to agricultural purposes, or, at least, has failed 

 for some reason to produce enough to bread the settlements, and, therefore, men with 

 limited means cannot accomplish anything on them. 



Marion County, Oregon. — Under date of December 1, the Secre- 

 tary of llock Point Farmers' Club, in this county, reports that within it.^ 

 limits the year 1873 has been one of general prosperity to agricultural 

 industry. Farmers have realized good crops and higher prices than 

 ever before. The wheat crop was 20 per cent, larger than any previous 

 one, averaging 30 bushels per acre ; rye, 30 bushels per acre ; corn, po- 

 tatoes, and hay were average 5 oats, 10 percent, below ; wool and cheese, 

 each 10 per cent, above ; butter, 10 per cent, below, but in good demand 

 at 37^ cents per pound ; the number of horses 20 per cent, and of hogs 

 30 per cent, below. Cattle plenty and dull sale, except for good dairy- 

 stock ; all kinds of fruit plenty except peaches. Prices : Wheat, $1 

 per bushel ; rye. 75 cents ; oats, 40 ; potatoes, 40 ; dried apples, C cents 

 per pound ; dried plums, 10 ; beef on the hoof, 5 cents net ; pork, 5 J, net 5 

 hay, $10 per ton. 



EiCE STRAW. — Our correspondent in Mcintosh County, Georgia, re- 

 ports that rice-straw in that section has become an important article of 

 traific. It is used largely by farmers and lumberers as a substitute for 

 hay, and is also in great demand for the manufacture of paper. 



Atascosa County, Texas. — This county is situated in the interior 

 of Southern Texas. A correspondent communicates the following state- 

 ment respecting its products in 1873 : Besides the " enormous number" 

 of cattle killed and stolen away by Indians and Mexicans, over 50,000 

 were driven to distant markets, and yet "untold thousands" remain in 

 the county. The cotton-crop turned out 450 to 500 pounds of lint-cot- 

 ton to the acre 5 corn, 35 bushels; sorghum, sweet-potatoes, and other 

 vegetables, also pea-nuts and the native Mustang grape, a full crop. 



The cow-pea in soil restoration. — On almost every plantation 

 in the cotton States there are worn-out cotton-fields, which must remain 

 unproductive until restored by fertilization. To find a fertilizer adapt- 

 ed to the wants of the soil, involving neither cost nor trouble of trans- 

 portation, easy of application, and yielding the quickest and largest re- 

 turns with the smallest outgo, is a great desideratum. The cow-pea, as 

 an agent m soil restoration, combines in a large degree these advantages. 

 A planter in Gwinnett County, Georgia, reports as follows : Having a 

 worn-out field of 20 acres which had been lying in broom-sedge for several 

 years, he broke it up in the summer of 1808, ydowing deep with a turn-over 

 plow. In the fall he sowed it in wheat. The yield, carefully measured, 



