434 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



tlie eight-horflc power grain threshers, by placing them in the hands of jobbers, 

 who Avill thresh and clean tlie farmers' clover seed at a fixed rate per bushel. 

 Anything that ■will tend to cheapen this seed -will be hailed with delight, and 

 must have a beneficial effect on tlic soil. Clover is the great renovator of worn- 

 eut soil, and nothing but the high price of seed prevents its more general use. 



Clover seed is .«aved from the second cutting of the crop, the first being used 

 for hay. This crop yields three to five, and sometimes seven, bushels of seed 

 to the acre. The straw has some value for feed, and the residue makes most 

 excellent manure ; but the cost of threshing, and the want of barns, has been 

 the great drawback to a more extended growth for this purpose. Pennsyl- 

 vania, with her immense barns, leads off" in this product, followed by Ohio, 

 leaving Illinois the lowest in the list — not from any intrinsic want in the soil, 

 but from lack of barns and machines to thresh the seed. 



The prairies are best adapted to this seed ; for it can be grown in them pure, 

 as the ground can be made clear, or is so already, of Canada thistles, charlock, 

 daisies, &c. It is to be hoped that the new clover threshers and hullers may 

 have a good eft'ect on the crops at the west. The crop of 1862 is set down at 

 a little over a million of bushels, worth probably, at wholesale, four and a half 

 millions of dollars, of which the farmers of Pennsylvania received a million and 

 a half, and those of Illinois but a hundred and twenty thousand dollars. The 

 time is not distant when this will be changed, and the prairie States be the 

 great producers of this seed. 



DRAINING 



This is an important topic for the west, and one that is beginning to attract 

 considerable attention. 



MOLE DRAINS. 



These drains are made by a broad coulter, armed with a shoe that presses 

 the earth on either side, except the bottom, and forces the clay up into the cut 

 made by the coulter, closing it for several inches above the mole. The water 

 filtering through the mole, gi'adually drains the land. It is chiefly used in low, 

 wet, clay land ; in fact it is of no value in a sandy or gravelly soil. In the 

 prairie sloughs it is valuable for its cheapness, and to procure water for stock, 

 making artificial springs tliat do not freeze over in the coldest weather. We have 

 one of them now, nearly four years old, which appears as good as when first 

 made, furnishing throughout the whole winter an ample supply of water, where 

 we formerly had to use a pump for the greater portion of the winter. The 

 supply of water failed for the first time during the drought of last season. 



There are but few farms in the central and northern parts of the State but 

 could have these artificial springs. In the basin of " Egypt," (that part of 

 Illinois lying between the Big Muddy river and the Terre Haute and Alton 

 railroad,) this would not be the case, as the soil is of such nature that the 

 water does not freely percolate through it. 



We have used this drain to some extent in upland, or rather in the upland 

 depressions, with very good results. As a drain for orchards and garden 

 ground, it would probably be of little value, while in all clay meadow land it 

 is doubtless valuable. Should the drain fail once in ten years, yet it will prove 

 the cheapest drain that can be made. The prairie soil is very easily drained — 

 that is, all that portion having a dark coloi'ed clay loam. One drain in four 

 rods would be amplti in most cases, requiring forty rods to the awe. This, 

 with the mole drain plough, would cost, say fifteen cents a rod, or six dollars 

 an acre ; while a tile di-ain would cost over twenty dollars at present pi'ices. 



Tile draining has not been introduced to any great extent at the west, as 

 the demand for tile has not induced their manufacture, and until the tile are made 

 here little will be done. If we had the tile, a large amount would be used in 

 draining celhws and house grounds, and ultimately it would extend 'to the 



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