110 
planters to pursue a different course in future. We hope for a great im- 
provement in the development of our resources, including a diversity of 
crops and an improved system of agriculture. 
GoopD FARMING.—Kansas, Dickinson: During the last three years some 
first-class stallions have been introduced, and the result is satisfactory. 
There has been the greatest improvement among cattle and milch-cows. 
Texas cattle are rapidly disappearing and short-horns are rapidly in- 
creasing. The few farmers raising sheep are introducing Cotswold, 
Shropshire, and Southdown rams, thus producing longer and closer 
wool. The finer breeds of hogs, such as Poland China, Magee, and 
Chester Whites, are abundant here. 
INDUSTRIES OF BUFFALO COUNTY, WISCONSIN.—The following is a 
condensed statement of facts reported to the Department by Mr. Will- 
iam Myer, secretary of a farmers’ club at Nelson. The farm-products of 
the county and the numbers of farm-stock in 1875 were as follows: 
5 Bushels ff 2. rr 
Kinds. Acres. | per acre. Total. Stock. Numbers. 
Oo oe A ee eS ereece Se 8, 125 12 972 500\\| Cattle (ete ee. oss eka eee 15, 218 
(Lie is) JAS NCdiee aes SOE errr 41, 334 | 21 S68. O04) | HOTSEB). Sos ale a nie as ee 4, 190 
OBESE Fees tas wre ata steel iiok vlad 10, 532 | 50 526, 600 198 
Barlow sacs <2e=>- ote erse. 7914 30 23, 745 8, 252 
1) a ie aI ale ge, 354. 18 6, 372 6, 389 
The corn-crop was greatly reduced by an early frost-—-a rare occur” 
rence. There were also,cultivated about 1,000 acres of potatoes, yield- 
ing 75 bushels per acre, and 143 acres of hops, yielding 800 pounds per 
acre. The average value of farm-lands per acre is $9.20. The county, 
lying on the banks of the Mississippi, with Chippewa River on the north- 
west, Beef river through the center, and Trempeleau Mountain river 
on the southeast, is well watered. Its numerous brooks are filled with 
speckled trout. The soil is generally good, and on the hills and bluffs 
timber of excellent quality abounds. The manufacture of lumber is ex- 
tensively carried on, the Alma Company alone employing 300 hands. 
Mr. Myer says: 
Buffalo County raises the best wheat for milling produced in the Northwest. Its 
markets are good, and its farmers are prosperous and bappy. As the streams afford 
or aig water-power, the county offers great inducements to manufacturers of all 
K1i0QS, , 
THE OSIER-WILLOW, (Silex viminalis.)—In our Annual Report for 1873, 
page 254, is a communication from Mr. E. Ware Sylvester, respecting a 
rising industry in the culture of this plant, for economic purposes, in 
Onondaga County, New York. The first experiments gave promise of 
complete success in the culture, with very profitable results, the net 
profit being $80 per acre. But in the summer of 1873 a variety of the~ 
saw-fly worm (Nematus ventricosus) ruined promising crops on Mr. 
Sylvester’s plantation of 15 acres, in Lyons, and ona plantation of 60 
acres near Syracuse. White hellebore was found effectual for destroy- 
ing the worms to which it was actually applied, but not for exterminat- 
ing the ever-multiplying swarms which came to replace them. In a 
communication to the Department, dated November 11, 1875, Mr. Syl- 
vester writes: 
I am happy to inform you that the worms have decreased yearly, until there were so 
few last summer that less than a day’s work of one hand, with a bellows loaded with 
hellebore, sufficed to destroy them. I have a good crop of willows, which I am now 
cutting and delivering, unpeeled at the railroad, one mile distant, on a contract at $18 
