MONTHLY REPORT. 



Department of Agriculture, 



Statistical Division, Aj)ril 18, 1874. 

 Sir : I present lierewitb, for publication, a report of the condition of 

 winter-grain tbroughout tlie United States in the first week in April j 

 a statement of the condition of farm-animals during the past winter, and 

 of the prevalence and fatality of diseases among them during the past 

 year; also an enumeration of the official schools of France, in the in- 

 terest of rural industry, with a brief view of their constitution and 

 status ; the usual records of investigations in other divisions of the De- 

 partment, and a variety of minor statistics. 



3. E. DODGE, 



Statistician. 

 Hon. Frederick Watts, 



Commissioner. 



CONDITION OF WINTER-WHEAT. 



Four-tenths of the wheat harvested in the United States is fall-sown. 

 The spring-wheat territory includes i)ractical]y the six Eastern States, 

 four Northwestern, and those of the Pacific coast. The former are of lit- 

 tle importance in production, and tlie latter are not properly included in 

 either list, sowing being continued from fall to spring in California and 

 in winter and spring in Oregon. The four States, Wisconsin, Minnesota, 

 Iowa, and Nebraska, now produce 90,000,000 bushels, or about one- 

 fourth of the crop. 



The present returns include the larger portion of the winter-wheat 

 area. They represent the crop as more generally promising than at 

 this period for several years past. The influence of sudden alternations 

 of temperature, and of cold and drying winds, during the month past, 

 has been almost the only drawback to the uniformity of vitality and 

 higher condition of the wheat-plant in every section of the country. 

 The winter has been so remarkably mild in the South, with almost entire 

 absence of injurious changes of temperature, that the returns from 

 Virginia to Texas are nearly unanimous in ascribing either average vigor 

 or luxuriant growth to the wheat-area. In about one-fourth of the 

 counties in the Ohio Valley an unpromising appearance is reported, 

 while a majority represent in various terms a condition above an aver- 

 age. From Missouri and Kansas still fewer unfavorable returns have 

 been received. 



