193 



in acreage of winter wheat : Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Vir- 

 ginia, Tennessee, Oregon. Increase in spring wheat : Maine 2, New 

 Hampshire 4, Minnesota 2, Kansas 14, California 5. The average de- 

 crease throughout the country is placed at 930,000 acres, or nearly 5 per 

 cent. 



The following States report conditions of winter grain above an aver- 

 age : New Hampshire, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, 

 Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky, 

 Minnesota, Nebraska, and Oregon. The percentage of reduction in 

 leading States reporting unfavorably is as follows: Illinois 15, Indiana 

 13, Ohio 13, Michigan 24, Iowa 11, Missouri 16, Kansas G, Califoruia 8, 

 New York 10, Pennsylvania 6, Texas 3. In spring wheat, the States 

 above an average are Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, West Vir- 

 ginia, and Minnesota ; of those below, the principal are, Illinois 9 per 

 cent., Missouri 15, Indiana 14, Ohio 10, Michigan 12, Wisconsin 7, Iowa 

 2, Nebraska 4, California 20. 



The superiority of early-sown winter- wheat, manifested at the open- 

 ing of spring, is fully maintained to the present time. In deep and 

 mellow soils, notwithstanding a lack of rain and a mean temperature 

 unusually high, it has a vigorous appearance, and if the straw is 

 shorter than usual, the head is plump and well filled. In some poor 

 soils, where the surface is as hard as a roadway, plants stand thin, with 

 short straw, and heads irregularly formed. Such is the case in many 

 places in the Ohio Valley, and to some extent in the Gulf States. 

 Throughout the dry sections the straw is shorter than usual. Fields 

 seeded with the drill uniformly appear better than those sown broad- 

 cast. Where the plant has succumbed to freezing in winter or drought 

 in spring it has generallj^ been, except in very wet or very poor loca- 

 tions, ui^on land roughly or carelessly prepared. 



Among the diseases and casualties reported, rust has had a very lim- 

 ited range; hail storms have caused damage in the Ohio Valley ; driv- 

 ing rains have beaten down some fields in Virginia and North Caro- 

 lina ; Utah has been ravaged by grasshoppers ; and in Contra Costa 

 County, Califoruia, squirrels have taken wheat *' by the acre daily," 

 until public meetings have been called to repel the invaders. 



COTTON. 



The cotton -growers seem determined this year to reduce the price to 

 fifteen cents, with every prospect of doing it. The acreage is materially 

 increased in every State, while that of wheat (and probably of corn, 

 though the county estimates of the entire country do not come in till July 

 1) has decreased. If neglect of all other interests can only be cured by 

 cheap cotton, the sooner the reduction comes the better. The condition 

 of the growing crop in North Carolina is good; in South Carolina it is 

 looking well, except that some complaint of bad stands is made ; in 

 Georgia it is late, and smaller than usual from effects of a drought of 

 five weeks which terminated May 25, but is growing vigorously now ; 

 the dry term was shorter m Florida and Alabama, and cotton is generally 

 in good condition ; reports from Mississippi are still more favorable ; in 

 Tensas Parish, Louisiana, where the greatest cotton yield of 1869 was 

 made, the condition of the crop is twenty per cent, better than last year, 

 and the acreage is increased one-fifth ; from Texas come reports of a 

 backward spring, with cotton late but thrifty and promising; and no 

 State makes more favorable returns than Arkansas. The average con- 

 dition of cotton, is better than last year at this time — a fact desirable 

 and gratifying in itself, but of no controlling force in determining the 



