2 



AUGUST REPORT ON THE CONDITION OF THE CROPS. 



Different modes of reporting the crops- — It was oui' purpose to throw some 

 light on the controversy among certain papers about the condition of the crops: 

 some being positive that the general crop was most excellent ; others that it 

 was much below an average. But the late frosts have rendered this unneces- 

 sary, further than to say that as the crops are, in the section where the papers 

 are located, so are the views of each paper. This is natural ; for until we can 

 fully realize the vastness of our country and the character of its climate — deluged 

 with rain in one section, and parched with drought in another; the hay crop 

 injured by daily showers in one part of a State, and the corn blades wilting in 

 another; in one part of a county favorable weather, in another scarcely a 

 shower — until these peculiarities are justly appreciated, opinions will take their 

 coloring from the condition of the crops near home. Then, again, good crops 

 are passed by without much comment; but the bad are the subject of much 

 complaint. A person unacquainted with farming takes a railroad trip through 

 two or three States, travelling night and day, dashing by cornfields with a ve- 

 locity that sets every stalk in the most ftintastic whirling around uncertain centres, 

 fences appearing most contemptibly low, and a wheat field a^ipearing thick or 

 thin as the cars may be on or above a level with the grain, and reports to the 

 paiDers, as he has to this Department, that the crops are good or bad, and gravely 

 assures us that correspondents in every county, who see crops from horseback, 

 and learn their condition from the most reliable, because best informed, sources, 

 are mistaken. 



If such opinions could have any approximation to correctness, it would be a 

 useless labor to make the extensive inquiries that are made by this Department, 

 or for it carefully to examine every return to learn whether a correspondent fully 

 understands the nature of the questions asked, and whether he has answered 

 each one according to the manner laid down in the directions, or for it to 

 collate the returns of counties, that the general condition of each State may be 

 shown, together with the climatic conditions of each for each month, or, as given 

 in this report, for each week. It was Curran who said that truth is slow and 

 painful in its progress ; but that error was flippant and compendious, hopping over 

 facts, but perching on assertion, which it called conclusion. A railway view of 

 the crops is a "hopping" one — that of this Department slow and laborious. 



The condition of the ci'ops prior to the frost of 'SOth of Avgw^.t. — The June 

 and July reports of this Department exhibited a most favorable view of all the 

 crops. Those harvested are undoubtedly large ; but the fall crops, as will be 

 seen more fully in this report, were injured in many localities by the continuance 

 of the drought through August. Corn was held back, so that when the frost 

 came, it found much of it in a condition unfit to withstand its severity. The 

 reports of the month of August show more the effects of the drought than of the 

 frost, for many of these had been written on the 28th, 29th, and 30th days of 

 August, before the frost, and those returning after it, were too prudent to return 

 that which could not then be known, except by uncertain suppositions. But 

 many gave their opinions separate from their regular returns, and to a por 

 tion of these we now refer, that the extent and character of the frost may be 

 seen. 



The frost of August 30, — The frosts of August 28, 29, and 30 were among 

 the most remarkable irregularities of our climate, and, we fear, among the most 

 destructive. From intensely hot weather and a soil heated from Minnesota to 

 Texas, that of itself was sufficient to preserve the temperature above -the freezing 

 point for weeks of ordinary weather, in two days, ice Avas formed of an eighth 

 of an inch in thickness over most of the latitudes between Minnesota and the 

 Ohio river, and seemingly varying in its intensity but little between these 



