489 



SILK-CULTURIO. 



Tooele County, Utah.— Knlheii-vy plautatiou.s are doing well; sericulfcura will sooa be 

 in full blast. 



L.VRGE CROPS. 



Wooditon County, Kansas. — From the best statistics I have beeu able to obtaiu, and from 

 my owa observation, I estimate that we can spare from this county aloue 250,000 

 bushels of corn and 75,000 bushels of potatoes. Such a crop was never raised here 

 before. What we now want is a market. 



Linn County. — The corn-crop is quite large. The increased facilities for cultivating 

 (the double-team corn-plow being now generally used) nearly double the acreage. 



Cache County, Utah. — We have raised the largest crops this season ever known in this 

 county; and as there are no grasshoppers, there is every prospect of success next 

 season. 



OVERESTIMATE OP CROPS. 



Stanislaus County, California. — The wheat-crop in this State has been annually 

 overestimated, in the first instance by farmers themselves. As an example, (though au 

 extreme case,) a neighbor stated, in San Francisco, that his yield would reach 20,000 

 bushels ; when thrashed, he had 4,.500. This county was estimated at 7,000,000 bushels ; 

 as near as I can get true data from my own observation and that of my assistants, after 

 visiting many thrashing-machines, the thrashing does not show half that amount. 

 Many thousand bushels yet remain to be thrashed. 



EXPERIMENTS IN RAISING COTTON. 



Arkansas County, Arkansas. — I found one stalk of cotton, plante^l about the 18th of 

 June, on which I counted 115 grown bolls. This will make 1.15 pounds of seed-cotton . 

 An acre of cotton planted 4 feet by 4 feet, and each stalk producing as well as that, 

 would yield about 3,000 pounds of seed-cotton. This year's experience proves to mo 

 that a fair crop of cotton can be raised on the l)ottom-lands, planted after the Ist of 

 June, provided the land is in fair order. I have long been of the opinion that the most 

 economical way to produce cotton is in checks, 4 feet by 4 feet on the bottom-lands, 

 and 3 feet by 3 feet on uplands. I am certain that au intelligent laborer can cultivate 

 twice as much checked, 4 by 4, as in the drill-system, in which at least three-fourths 

 of the cultivating has to be done with the hoe. In the former method the riding sulky - 

 plow can be used to great advantage, leaving little to be done with the hoe. 



BENEFICIAL INFLUENCE OF AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATIONS. 



Gadsden County, Florida. — Under the influence of the Gadsden County Agricultural 

 Association, which I am sory to say is the only permanent organization of the kind in 

 the State, the farmers of the county have been greatly stimulated this fall to the seed- 

 ing of an increased area of oats and a better preparation of the soil. Heretofore, the 

 general rule has been to appropriate to the cultivation of the oat only such portions 

 of the fiirm as were too much exhaused to produce an average crop of corn or cotton, 

 and cousequent failure has been the usual result. But experience has now demon- 

 strated that there is no other crop planted which responds so satisfactorily to a liberal 

 application of fertilizers and a proper preparation of the soil, and I trust that our 

 farmers have entered upon a new era in regard to the growing of this invaluable 

 cereal. In an adjoining county, 84 bushels to the acre in one instance, and 96^ in 

 another, have been realized on ordinary pine-land suitably fertilized and properly 

 prepared for seeding. They were sowed the later part of October and harvested about 

 the middle of May. The clay lands of middle Florida are admirably adapted to the 

 growing of the oat, and if greater attention were given to it there would never be any 

 serious complaint of a lack of corn. 



