STATE REPORTS OF AGRICULTURE. 509 
ternational trial, although one of them was held by one of the best 
plowmen of England, and certainly performed its work to the entire 
satisfaction of its manufacturer. English plows generally do not “scour,” 
and have been condemned ,as unwieldy, heavy-draught “ horse killers,” 
doing little execution in proportion to the strength of team required to 
draw them. The English, however, seem to have attained perfection in 
constructing the plow that realizes their ideas of perfect work—to turn 
a furrow-slice, at whatever depth, so evenly and gradually as scarcely 
to disturb its component particles of earth in their relations to each 
other. The line of furrow must be entirely straight, and the furrow- 
slice unbroken. But other tools and after labors are necessary for pul- 
verizing and preparing the seed-bed for the incorporation of manures 
and the reception of the grain. 
The consumption of cheese in Europe is enormous. Paris consumes 
annually about 11,000,000 pounds, and all France not less than 200,- 
000,000. American factory cheese is now imported largely into France 
and England, ofa quality equalto the best English. Out of the general 
habit of eating cheese, however, has grown up a multitude of tastes, 
prejudices, and notions, so that the richest and best American and 
English cheese, made from the milk of the finest cows, fed on the 
choicest grasses, and having a delicious flavor to the unperverted taste, 
is thrown aside by thousands for a cheese made from goats’ milk, with 
a pungent scent, utterly repelled by the natural nose, and strong enough 
to give early notice of its presence to a person approaching ; or for 
another kind, made from ewes’ milk, into which have been introduced 
moldy bread and the sporules of a cryptogamic plant, after which the 
cheese is placed in cool, moist caves, under conditions developing the 
rapid growth of the fungus and reaching its desirable flavor when a 
blue-mold has permeated and discolored the whole mass. The latter 
is extolled by some as the “king of cheeses,” and upwards of 6,000,000 
pounds are annually made in France, requiring the milk of 200,000 
ewes. It sells at the caves for about 12 cents a pound. It is exported 
to various countries, and in New York its admirers pay 40 cents a pound 
for it. 
. 
IOWA. 
Dr. J. M. Shaffer, secretary of the Iowa State Agricultural Society, gives 
a general view of the agriculture of the State during the past year, 
abstracts of the reports of seventy-five county and district societies, 
and several essays, by western writers, on the agricultural development 
of the State. The volume comprises also the annual report of the Hor- 
ticultural Society, and is entirely original. The total receipts of the 
society were $66,209; paid out in premiums, $39,573, or nearly 67 per 
cent. 
The past year, upon the whole, was unfavorable to the farmers of the 
State, from various causes. The weather and excessive rains were dis- 
astrous to the cereals; there was also a large decrease in the number of 
Sheep, and in the production of wool, with losses of swine from dis- 
ease; a largely increased acreage of wheat, with a crop inferior in 
quality as well as quantity; a lamentable decline in the cultivation of 
artificial timber; a falling off in the corn.erop, though prices were 
higher than for many years; enormous crops of grass, but materially 
injured in harvesting; great inferiority in the quality of apples and a 
potato crop unparalleled in quantity, with a loss of thousands of acres 
from an untimely freeze in October. 
The rain-fall was enormous, 40.56 inches, against 32.25 in 1868, and 
