500 AGRICULTUEAL EEPORT. 



commenced fifty years ago : to import manure, save and make all tlioy can at homo 

 and apply it to the best advantage ; and they are putting more labor and capital on the 

 land. This course will always result in a corresponding increase of the agricultural 

 productions of a countrj^ 



I will give some figures in relation to Connecticut, which I kuov/ to bo correct. They 

 refer to a strip of land, some six miles long and three miles wide, up Long Island 

 Sound, in a section of country ranking as among the best land in the State. The 

 following is a reliable statement of the amount and cost of manures used there last 

 year : 



Old leached ashes, 7, 500 bushels, at 25 cents per bushel §1, 875 00 



Ground bones, 200 tons, at $35 per ton 7,000 00 



Superphosphate of li me, 125 tons, at $50 per ton (>, 250 00 



Guano, 10 tons, at $50 per ton 500 00 



Sea-weed, 10,000 loads, at $1 per load 10,000 00 



Salt hay, 3,000 tons, at $10 per ton 30,000 00 



Barn-yard and other manures 20, 000 00 



Total 75,625 00 



Under this system the j)rice of land is rising, so that farm-lands there are now worth 

 from $200 to $500 i^er acre. The yield per acre of any of the given jiroducts is about 

 as follows: Onions, 900 bushels; potatoes, 400 bushels; strawberries, from 200 to 300 

 bushels ; wheat, 40 bushels ; corn, 100 bushels ; hay, 5 tons ; and other crops in pro- 

 portion. 



The fertility of the soil being restored, its productive qualities can 

 be retained by a proper rotation of crops. Mr. Eichmond's plan of rota- 

 tion, as i^racticed by him for several years past with most excellent re- 

 sults, is to plow an old meadow or pasture in the spring, plant it with 

 corn or potatoes two years, sowing to barley the third spring, with 

 wheat put on the land in the fall; the fourth spring seed down with one- 

 half clover and one-half timothy ; then, after mowing it three years, 

 pasture it two seasons. 



Dr. J. A. Warder addressed the convention on the subject of timber- 

 planting and forest culture. In addition to this address the report con- 

 tains an elaborate paper, on the same subject, from the pen of Mr. Daniel 

 Millikin. Dr. Warder refers to the fact that from 1853 to 1870, a period 

 of seventeen years, there were 817,911 acres of land cleared in the State 

 of Ohio, a rate which reached nearly 50,000 acres per annum. At this 

 rate it would require but half a century to destroy the entire forests of 

 the State, supposing that the increasing population, already forty-nine 

 persons to the square mile, be no more wasteful of their timber than the 

 present generation. The most valuable timber trees wxrc then enumer- 

 ated. The black-walnut, the oak, the cherry, the tulip, ash, beech, and 

 pines are those most desired in the arts ; but a century or more is re- 

 quired to perfect the trees ; and to produce the most valuable logs, two, 

 three, and often more centuries are needed. In the forests of Ohio and 

 Indiana the logs of the tulip and black- walnut often have three and four 

 hundred rings of annual growth. Near Terrc Haute, Indiana, a log five 

 feet in diameter contained three hundred and ninety rings, without count- 

 ing the heart, which was decayed for some inches. Mr. John Lush, near 

 Kockville, Indiana, counted four hundred rings iu poplar logs. Mr. 

 Ayres, of Champaign couut^^, Ohio, found a tulip-poplar that was 70 feet 

 to" the limbs, and was supposed to be five hundred years old. Kotwith- 

 standing the great value of these trees when they arrive at maturity, it 

 would not do to plant them for present profit. The interest accumulates 

 so slowly that no margin would be left in the end. Of thrifty growing 

 varieties, which promise a speedy profit. Dr. Warder gives the following 

 absolute measurements of trees grown in tlie neighborhood of Terre 

 Haute, Indiana: 



Catalpa, fifteen years planted, 21 inches in diameter. 

 Ailauthus, twenty-four years planted, 22 inches iu diameter* 



