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that whether cut up or left standing, the ear did not continue to till but dried up. 

 Fortunately the weather was generally favorable in its dryness, as Avill be seen 

 from the tables showing the weeks of fevorable, dry or very dry, wet or yery 

 wet weather. In localities where the weather was wet, the cut up corn moulded 

 and the ear rotted. 



The corn plant continues its flow of sap, undiminished, until about the first 

 of October, when the grain is well filled with starch, and becomes glazed. If 

 the ear is pulled, or the stalk broken off, whilst in the roast-ear state, it shrivels 

 to such a degree as to be almost worthless. The further it is advanced Avhen 

 broken off the greater its value ; but the common corn of the country demands 

 that continued flow of the saji until the close of September. The effect of the 

 frost was to stop that flow. The flirmers commenced early to feed their frosted 

 corn to hogs and cattle, but the general opinion is that it will avail but little for 

 fattening purposes. Should this opinion be correct, the fattening must be done 

 with the sounder corn. The high price for corn during the summer has, proba- 

 bly, lessened the amount of old corn on the farms. 



Buckwheat. — In the winter months this crop is so generally consumed as a 

 luxury and a necessity that its loss would be lamented everywhere. The ac- 

 counts of the destructiveness of the frosts represented it as an almost entire 

 failure, but our tables, which we regard as unerring in their general results, 

 fortunately give abundant encouragement. The crop of 1862 was 18,722,995 

 bushels, that of 1863, 17,193,322, a decrease of 1,529,762 bushels. The tables 

 show the reason of this small decrease in presence of so destructive frosts. The 

 eastern States raise a greater proportional part of this crop. New York, New 

 Jersey, and Pennsylvania alone produced 12,941,670 bushels this year. lu 

 these States the frosts were but little injurious, for they were, most emphatically, 

 Mississippi valley frosts. Illinois alone lost 55,242,454 bushels of corn by 

 them; but that State produces over 30 per cent, of the entire corn crop of the 

 country, and as much as all the eastern and middle States together, Avith fifty 

 millions of bushels of an overplus. 



Potatoes. — New York and Pennsylvania are the chief potato producing States, 

 and there i:? no material decrease in their potato crop for 1863. But in this, as 

 in all other fall crops, the loss comes mostly on the western States. The potato 

 crop of 1862 was 113,533,118 bushels, and of 1863, 97,870,035 bushels, a de- 

 Crease of 15,663,083 bushels. The droughts of summer and the frosts of early 

 autumn much injured this crop in the west. The recent correspondence of the 

 department showed a disposition in the potatoes to rot in the eastern States, ou 

 account of wet weather, but no evidence appears of the disease becoming general. 



Sorghum. — As this crop is mostly grown in the western States, the low figures 

 of our table — 6, 7, and 8, of these States — indicating a loss of 40, 30, and 20 

 per cent., show that this crop, too, has, in common with all other fall crops in 

 that section, suffered very much. Immediately after the frosts, the cane was 

 rapidly made into molasses, but the yield is spoken of as very small, and in 

 localities it was regarded as iniprofitable to make molasses from it. It is very 

 certain that no sugar Avill be made from the sorghum the present year in the 

 west. 



Cotton. — Our tables exhibit few returns of this crop, showing that but few 

 States attempt its cultivation. And in those that do the returns from the 

 counties are, proportionally, as few, indicating that the general trial of last year 

 revealed the fact that but few localities of the loyal States are at all suited to 

 its cultivation. The western cotton has felt the full effect of the frosts of Au- 

 gust and September; the reports from Illinois, where it is more largely raised 

 than in any other State, show but half a crop. 



Tobacco. — No crop felt so much the effects of these frosts as that of tobacco. 

 It is a tender plant, and was* greatly injured as far south as the correspondence 

 of the department reaches — the middle portions of Kentucky. Still the yield 



