DIGEST or STATE REPOETS. 467 



was bis principal business, and had becu for a great many years, and he 

 felt qualified to express an opinion on the comparative merits of sliort- 

 liorns and common stock for ftra>;ing i^nrposes. lie had thorough-bred 

 steers which sold for 88.50, when the market for best common beef-cat- 

 tle was but 86 per hundred, and some times 13 cents per pound had 

 been realized for his Christmas steers. He believed in raising short- 

 horns for the shambles, and knew from extended personal experience 

 that it could be done with greater x^rolit than raising common stock. For 

 a long series of years the results of raising short-horns had realized 

 profits fully 50 per cent, greater than he had been able to secure from 

 grazing common stock on the same pastures; and the farmer vvho raised 

 short-horns for beef had fully 50 -per cent, advantage over his neighbor 

 who raised common stock. In reference to grazing he said that entire 

 reliance should not bo placed on blue-grass. From yeajrs of observa- 

 tion he had found that a pasture of mixed clover and timotJiy would, 

 during the months of May and June, put more Hesh on cattle than blue- 

 grass; but he would not recommend this for later pasturage. The 

 greatest difticulty encountered by graziers was the short pasturage from 

 the last week in July to the first week in September ; and if any one 

 could discover a grass which would provide good i)asturage during this 

 period he would confer a great blessing on the country. The best pas- 

 turage he had been able to ])rovide for bridging over this gap was red 

 clover and orchard grass. The " English blue- grass,*' as it was called 

 in his part of the country, but which, he believed, was the perennial rye- 

 grass, was also very valuable at this time. lied-top he had a very poor 

 opinion of for any purpose. General Meredith coincided in this view, 

 and regarded red-top as comparatively worthless. The last-named gen- 

 tleman thought that the earliest grass had very little strength in it, and 

 he believed in leeding cattle a little grain when first turned to grass in 

 the spring ; believed in it because it paid to feed it. 



Mr. Delos Wood, in the course of an essay on underdraiuiug, recites 

 the following experiments made on drained and undrained land : 



The summer of 1871 -was so exceedingly dry that I was often told that I would get 

 nothing fi'om that field, (recently nudcrdrained,) but, on the coutrai'y, it produced all 

 the really good corn I had, while that adj oining, on the same kind of soil, and with 

 precisely the same kind of treatment, except the draining, rolled up and then burned 

 up. Not a leaf on the drained laud cnrled until the corn was nearly ready to cut. At 

 the harvesting the contrast was still more striking ; that on the drained land aver- 

 aged 90 bushels of shelled corn per acre, while on the undrained it was not over 35. 

 This year it is in corn again, with jn-ecisely the same results. Last fall I plowed the 

 imdrained part up into ridges, and left it to the action of tho frost, then plowed it 

 again in the spring; but it has not produced one-half as much corn as the other. Its 

 effects upon other crops are also well-marked. In wheat, winter-killing is almost done 

 away with, as it is only on wet, heavy soils that heaving takes place, and as vegeta- 

 tion of all kinds starts earlier on the warm, dry soil of the drained land, wheat is 

 usually ripeued in time to escape the rust. 



A neighbor who has been experimenting on the effects of underdraiuiug on different 

 crops, planted a small plat of potatoes upon a drained field, from which he dug 45 bush- 

 els. In an undrained field of the same kind of soil, he measiu-ed off six times tho same 

 amount of ground, planted it with the same kind of iiotatoes, and gave them tho same 

 cultivation, from which he dug 52 bushels. 



The grass crop is not so much increased in quantity as improved in quality, the hay 

 being of the very best, while all danger of its being displaced by sedge and other semi- 

 aquatic grasses is destroyed. Usually, in onr climate and soil, clover suffers the sec- 

 ond season quite as much as wheat from the extreme alternations of freezing and 

 thawing, which throws the roots out of tho ground, breaking the small, fibrous, work- 

 ing roots, and thus killing the j)lants. 



In an article on the progress of manufactures in the State, the secre- 

 tary states that three of the principal sewing-machines now in use are 

 manufactured in Indiana, viz : The Wheeler &: AVilson, the Singer, and 



