STATE REPORTS OF AGRICULTURE. 499 
its train of symptoms, and drainage suppresses charbon and ail its train, 
so in Ohio, sulphur and drainage have cured this fungus disease the past 
year and rendered practically harmless the black sickness of the grapes. 
The best cultivators urge the importance of thinning out the fruit, over- 
cropping being a common fault in the Ohio vineyards. The orchard 
products of the State are estimated at $7,000,000 annually. ‘The ship- 
ments of strawberries from Cincinnati in one week, in June, reached 
18,200 bushels, or more than 455 tons, equal to 45 car loads. 
There is a general complaint that the crops of apples are both decreas- 
ing and deteriorating, which is ascribed to several causes, as, now and 
then, severe winters, killing many trees outright and rendering others 
feeble and sickly for years; severe droughts; undrained and badly-pre- 
pared land before planting, with poor or no cultivation afterward ; 
starvation, by cropping the soil, when naturally poor, with no manuring ; 
bad pruning; and borers. The evils affecting fruit generally are attrib- 
utable to the great increase of inseet enemies, which will not be miti- 
gated as long as an indiscriminate slaughter of small insectivorous 
birds is allowed. The curculio now attacks apples as well as stone-fruits, 
Strong hardware paper, wound tightly around the base of the tree, is 
recommended as a good protection against the peach tree worm. 
MICHIGAN. 
The eighth annual report of the Secretary of the State Board of Agri- 
culture comprises not only the usual statistics and proceedings of the 
board, but also reports from the county societies; discussions of the 
Western Lake Shore Horticultural Association, of more than ordinary 
interest, on the adaptability of that part of the State to the production 
of fruit; essays on wheat culture, grasses, cheese dairying; expergments 
in fattening swine, and the Colorado potato bug; exhaustive articles on 
Short-horn cattle and long-wooled sheep, by the secretary, Sanford 
Howard, and an interesting article on Huropean agriculture, with notes 
by Mr. Howard. 
The receipts of the board last year were $70, 752 17; disbursements, 
$66, 672 69. Receipts of the State Agricultural Society, $22, 863 87; 
disbursements, $22,954 11, including some extra investments. The 
number of students at the State Agricultural College was 69. The 
superintendent of the college farm reports various experiments in fat- 
tening stock, the application of manures and special fertilizers, and 
with varieties of grain. The Excelsior oats yielded at the rate of 60.6 
bushels per acre, weighing 37.5 pounds per bushel; the Somerset oats, 
94.2 bushels, weighing 31 pounds; the White Schonen oats, 62.3 bushels, 
weighing 37.5 pounds; and the Black Swedish oats, 66.2 bushels, weigh- 
ing 30.6 pounds. These four varieties were introduced and distributed 
by the Department of Agriculture. The Prince Edward’s Island oats 
yielded 63.2 bushels, weighing 34.7 pounds ; the Brooks oats, 68.6 bushels, 
weighing 31 pounds; the Norway oats, 50.3 bushels, weighing 28 pounds; 
and the Surprise oats, 38.3 bushels, weighing 36.2 pounds. 
The ravages of the potato bug have been less destructive than usual, 
the chief causes of which were the two or three warm weeks in April 
and May that brought out large numbers before their usual time, which 
were destroyed by cold and starvation in the raw and changeable 
weather that followed; farmers also were vigilant in picking and de- 
stroying the old beetles as fast as they appeared, so that, after all, there 
was raised the largest and best matured crop of potatoes ever produced 
in the State. The potato bug, the grasshopper, rose bug, and army 
