322 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



Porte co. There is a very good feeling pervading the 

 farming community there, that will produce a very fine 

 fair next October. 



There was considerable alarm existing among the 

 wheat growers during the first week of this month, on 

 account of a slight show of rust; but I think it will not 

 injure the crop. I believe early sowing is the best remedy 

 to prevent this terrible scourge of the farmers in this 

 country. 



The army worm did considerable damage in La Porte 

 co. this season. Many fields of timothy were entirely de- 

 stroyed, and some fields of corn swept clean. 



I visited your friend, John I. Crandall, and found a 

 very pretty daughter of his engaged in feeding a lot of 

 silk worms. They feed from the common white mul- 

 berry. It is much more hardy than the morus multi- 

 caulis, and furnishes foliage earlier in the season. — Mr. 

 Crandall has a very large quantity of the trees, and could 

 furnish many other persons with a stock. 



Those farmers in La Porte who used the locomotive 

 threshing machine last year, are much pleased with it. 

 This machine passes through the field, thrashing as it 

 goes along among the shocks, and scatters the straw over 

 the ground. If this straw is then plowed in, it will un- 

 doubtedly be of great advantage to the soil. 



I also saw a new kind of fanning mill building at La 

 Porte, upon an entirely new plan, that appears to me 



had moved to Kane County in 1837 (Commemorative Biographical 

 and Historical Record of Kane County, Illinois, 775 [Beers, Leggett 

 & Co., Chicago, 1888] ) ; James T. Gifford, of Kane County, presi- 

 dent of the Union Agricultural Society, and contributor to the 

 Prairie Farmer, Albany Cultivator, and other periodicals; and 

 Edward W. Brewster, later an officer of the Union Agricultural 

 Society, and at the time, postmaster of Little Woods, Kane County. 

 In reporting the tour, Wright said that traveling with Robin- 

 son made money "a needless commodity," that his talks were "all 

 of the right character, plain and practical and no two alike," and 

 that he would like to print extracts of them if Robinson would 

 write them out. Apparently Robinson failed to do this. For 

 Wright's report, see Union Agriculturist, 2:61 (July, 1842). 



