462 



Oats, 1,487 acres, yielding 63,888 bushels, or 43 per acre. 



Coru, 610 acres, yielding 20,985 bushels, or 34.4 per acre. 



Barley, 942 acres, yielding 28,959 bushels, or 30.75 per acre. 



The number of farms represented the present season is 158, with 

 9,985 acres in wheat, 1,753 in oats, and 472 in corn. In 1871 the aver- 

 age acreage to a farm was, of wheat, 44 acres ; of oats, 10.7 ; of corn, 4.4. 

 In 1872, of wheat, 63.2 ; of oats, 11.1 ; of coru, 3. 



Experiment in growing potatoes. — Mr. James Wells, of Cliico- 

 pee, Massachusetts, plowed deep and harrowed a piece of green sward, 

 designed for a garden ; dug deep holes three feet apart each way, put 

 sods" in the bottom, grass side down, and on them cow-stable mauure, 

 about two quarts in each hill ; covered this lightly with soil, cut one 

 bushel of early rose potatoes so as to have but one eye in a piece, and 

 put two pieces in a hill, to 12 inches apart. The ground was kept free 

 from weeds, and the hills made "high and large." The product was 51 

 bushels of potatoes, 48 of which were of suitable size for the table. 

 The ground measured 4,280 square feet, or a fraction less than one-tenth 

 of an acre ; and, therefore, the crop was at the rate of over 500 bushels 

 l^er acre. * 



Black-leg. — Our correspondent at Western Park, Howard County, 

 Kansas, represents that a cattle disease prevailing in that locality, and 

 known as black-leg, attacks young stock in about the following propor- 

 tions : 70 per cent, of calves, 25 per cent, of yearlings, and 5 per cent, 

 of twoyear-olds. He recommends feeding freely with salt as a prevent- 

 ive, and as an antidote, the tincture of aconite, which he has tried with 

 some success. 



Effects of coimmercial fertilizers in cold soils. — Our cor- 

 respondent in Milton County, Northern Georgia, represents that by the 

 use of commercial fertilizers that county has been rendered as psoduct- 

 ive in cotton as the southern portion of the State. It is an elevated 

 region, situated on a spur of the Blue Eidge which divides the Missis- 

 sippi and the Atlantic slope, and the soil is a cold red loam or rotten 

 clay. The stimulating fertilizer gives the cotton-plant an early start, 

 and the weather is seldom, if ever, hot enough to cause it to wither or 

 rust. 



Army of squirrels, — Our correspondent in Jackson County, Ar- 

 kansas, reports that squirrels in large flocks are traveling through the 

 county, and destroying entire fields of corn. They are so plenty that as 

 many as 125 have been killed in a day by one man. 



Disease among calates. — Our report for September from Lawrence 

 County, Indiana, states that quite a number of spring calves have died 

 in that locality of a disease which runs its course in from three to five 

 days ; the several stages being stiffnesS; disinclination to move, and loss 

 of appetite. 



Texas cattle-disease. — It is reported that at a locality in Boone 

 County, Missouri, about twenty cattle have recently died of Texas fever ; 

 also that in Bates County, and in Christian County, Illinois, the same dis- 

 ease has broken out and is spreading with fatal effects. In the two 

 former instances its origin is traced to droves of Texas cattle passing 

 through the places, and in the latter to a herd of the same brought into 

 the place by a stock-man. 



Rain in Utah. — Our correspondent in Kane County represents, that, 

 while rains have been so abundant as to damage late crops in some locali- 



